Obama..... not religious?

@nimh,

nimh wrote:

Ditto. +2

It's funny how far these theoretical discussions of theology become removed from people's day-to-day experience, and how much that doesn't stop those engaged in the discussions from declaring who is a real Christian and who is not. But it's all the funnier when none of those partaking in the "angels on the head of a pin" discussions at hand are actually Christian.

Precisely.

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@nimh,

nimh wrote:

(Jeez, have we gotten to the point where you cant make an opponent a compliment without it being suspect?)

Sorry, Nimh, I was replying to this bit. I know you got that it was a joke. Perhaps I should have emphasized that it was meant as just a joke. I also understood that you were complimenting his use of language, not his argument. I'm very sorry if I gave any offense; sometimes teasing can come across as being aggressive.

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"When I use the word 'Christianity'" Frank Apisa said, "it means just what I want it to mean--neither more nor less."

My apologies to Lewis Carroll, his fans, his heirs, and his estate.

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@joefromchicago,

Quote:

Definitions, in any event, follow usage rather than the other way around. We know that something, for instance, is a "dog" because we have examples of dogs that we can say, without question, are members of that category. So if some unknown beast comes to our attention, we can determine whether it fits into the definition of "dog" by looking at other examples that we're sure already fit that definition. In the same way, we don't define "Christian" in a vacuum, but rather by looking at examples that we're sure already fit that definition.

Someone who merely follows the precepts of Jesus, without accepting his divinity, is probably on the fringes of what we would consider to be the definition of "Christian." There's very little to distinguish someone who says "I follow the 'golden rule' laid down by Jesus, but I don't accept that he was divine" with someone who says "I follow the 'golden rule' because it's morally defensible, and I don't give a fico for that guy Jesus." I'm not sure why we'd call the first person a "Christian" but not the second. It seems that the first is a "Christian" only by happenstance -- if he had learned of the "golden rule" from a fortune cookie rather than the bible we could, with equal justification, call him a "Fortune Cookiean." If "Christian" is to be a meaningful category, it must mean more than just thinking that Christ was a smart cookie.

Sorry. Had to go to the hospital. The end is within hours for my mother-in-law"and I wanted to be with Nancy and her sister for a while.

When I got back, the first thing I read was this. I am really getting to understand why Joe Nation was so steadfast in recommending your reasoning and presentation when your name came up at our frequent dinners.

This is an excellent bit of reasoning, Joe...and, as Nimh mentioned, and extremely clever presentation; it sets out the ideas you were sharing in crystal clear fashion.

I am delighted that Nimh was able to recognize and acknowledge it as such...

...and probably just as delighted that DrewDad was so stumped by what you were doing here.

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@DrewDad,

Ya know...that is actually clever, DrewDad.

Shocked the **** out me.

I would never have thought you capable of a clever thought!

But when taken in context...I am sure you understand I was doing what had to be done to deal with Setanta's silly nitpicking.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Your continuing remarks about Arianism, including the quotes from the previous thread, in which you similarly side-stepped Socianism and the Jehovah's Witnesses, is simply a continuation of your ipse dixit. You say that one cannot be a Christian unless they accept the divinity of the putative Christ. If i offer any examples of people who considered themselves Christian, and who have been considered Christians by others, who don't believe that the putative Christ was divine, you simply revisit your fall back position that if they don't believe the putative Christ was divine, they can't be Christians. A convenient, if silly and facile position for you to take.

I contend that one cannot be a Christian without, at the very least, accepting the divinity of Jesus because any other definition doesn't make sense. Saying that someone can be a Christian by following Christ's teachings, without accepting his divinity, ignores the fact that Christ's teachings were largely religious in nature. Granted, Christ's religious teachings are not always clear, but either he was teaching that he represented a break from Judaism, in which case he was arguing that he was divine or divinely inspired, or else he was teaching a new version of Judaism, in which case someone following those teachings would end up, according to your definition, being a Christian Jew, which is simply too monstrous to accept. As for those few, isolated people who follow Christ's non-religious teachings and who are, according to you, also "Christians," I state once more: I don't see how one can call such a person "Christian" without that category losing all meaning.

Now, if that's an ipse dixit, then so be it. I've provided my source, so it's no more of a "sez me" than your continued assertions that Arians didn't believe in the divinity of Christ. As for Jehovah's Witnesses and Socinians, I haven't had the inclination to look closely at their theologies. As far as I can tell, the JWs think that Christ was divine, just not cosubstantial. In that respect, they're like the Arians. As for Socinians and their views on the divinity of Christ, I haven't a clue.

1 Reply

@nimh,

nimh wrote:

It's funny how far these theoretical discussions of theology become removed from people's day-to-day experience, and how much that doesn't stop those engaged in the discussions from declaring who is a real Christian and who is not. But it's all the funnier when none of those partaking in the "angels on the head of a pin" discussions at hand are actually Christian.

Probably because so few Christians actually take Christian theology seriously.

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@JPB,

Quote:

This goes to my point throughout this thread. I've never understood why anyone makes any denomination's definition of Christianity an issue.

Truly do not understand what you are getting at here, JPB. Flesh it out a bit and I will respond.

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@joefromchicago,

Quote:

I contend that one cannot be a Christian without, at the very least, accepting the divinity of Jesus because any other definition doesn't make sense.

There's been an awful lot of palaver to get to that point, which was evident to me at the outset. I don't see any reason for me to agree with it, just because you say it. I don't see it as any more logical than the definitions which i have been using. Buddhists don't believe that Gautama Siddhartha was god, and that is not a good reason to object that they can't therefore be true Buddhists. Christ simply means the anointed one, and that sense comes from messiah, which only means a savior or liberators. Divinity is not ipso facto a requirement to be a savior or liberator.

This is something about which we can disagree without rancor, but it is not something about which i see any reason to consider your definition to be more "sensible" than any of those to which i have referred.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

When I got back, the first thing I read was this. I am really getting to understand why Joe Nation was so steadfast in recommending your reasoning and presentation when your name came up at our frequent dinners.

I knew there was a reason I liked Joe Nation, apart from our shared Joe-ness.

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Definition of Socianianism:

From Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

A heresy concerning the nature of God. It is derived from two brothers of the surname Sozinni who lived in the 1500's in Poland. Socinianism denies the doctrine of the Trinity claiming it denies the simplicity of God's unity. Instead, God is a single person with the Holy Spirit as the power of God. Since it emphasizes the unity of God, there could be no divine and human union in a single person as Christ. Therefore, Socinianism denies the incarnation and deity of Christ as well as Christ's pre-existence. It teaches that Jesus was only a man. However, as is separate from the unitarians, it taught that Jesus was a deified man and was to be adored as such. Nevertheless, since Jesus is not divine by nature, His sacrifice was not efficacious; that is, it did not result in the redemption of people who would trust in it. Instead it was an example of self sacrifice. The followers of Socinianism also rejected infant baptism, hell, and taught the annihilation of the wicked. The Bible was authoritative but was only properly understood through rationalism.

From Wikipedia

Socinians held views rooted in skepticism and rationality only and rejected orthodox teachings on the Trinity and on the divinity of Jesus, as summarised in the Racovian Catechism. They also believed that God's omniscience was limited to what was a necessary truth in the future (what would definitely happen), and did not apply to what was a contingent truth (what might happen). They believed that, if God knew every possible future, human free will was impossible; and as such rejected the "hard" view of omniscience. They are to be differentiated from Arians, who believed Christ was a created being. The Socinians held that the Son of God did not exist until he was born a man.

The soteriology of Socinianism rejects the propitiatory view of atonement.

From the "Christology" section of the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Socinianism

This point was particularly interesting, as on it the whole of Socinianism turns. God, the Socinians maintained, and rightly, is absolutely simple; but distinction of persons is destructive of such simplicity; therefore, they concluded the doctrine of the Trinity is unsound. Further, there can be no proportion between the finite and the infinite, hence there can be no incarnation, of the Deity, since that would demand some such proportion. But if, by an impossibility, there were distinction of persons in the Deity, no Divine person could be united to a human person, since there can by no unity between two individualities. These arguments are of course puerile and nothing but ignorance of Catholic teaching can explain the hold which such views obtained in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As against the first argument, see St. Thomas, (Summa I:12:1, ad 4); for the solution of the others see Petavius. But the Socinians did not become Arians, as did Campanus and Gentilis. The latter was one of the original society which held its meetings at Vicenza; he was beheaded at Berne in 1566. They did not become Tritheists, as Gentilis himself was supposed by some to be. Nor did they become Unitarians, as might have been expected. Socinus had indeed many affinities with Paul of Samosata and Sabellius; with them he regarded the Holy Spirit as merely an operation of God, a power for sanctification. But his teaching concerning the person of Christ differed in some respects from theirs. For Socinus, Christ was the Logos, but he denied His pre-existence; He was the Word of God as being His interpreter (interpres divinae voluntatis). The passages from St. John which present the Word as the medium of creation were explained by Socinus of regeneration only. At the same time Christ was miraculously begotten: He was a perfect man, He was the appointed mediator, but He was not God, only deified man. In this sense He was to be adored; and it is here precisely that we have the dividing line between Socinianism and Unitarianism, for the latter system denied the miraculous birth of Christ and refused Him adoration. It must be confessed that, on their principles, the Unitarians were much more logical.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

There's been an awful lot of palaver to get to that point, which was evident to me at the outset. I don't see any reason for me to agree with it, just because you say it.

That's odd, I find that reason particularly persuasive.

Setanta wrote:

I don't see it as any more logical than the definitions which i have been using. Buddhists don't believe that Gautama Siddhartha was god, and that is not a good reason to object that they can't therefore be true Buddhists. Christ simply means the anointed one, and that sense comes from messiah, which only means a savior or liberators. Divinity is not ipso facto a requirement to be a savior or liberator.

There's a good reason why Buddhists don't think the Buddha was god -- there's no theological justification for that belief, and he never claimed that status for himself. Likewise, Confucians don't believe that Confucius was a god, but then again Confucius wasn't going around with a bunch of disciples claiming to be the fulfillment of god's law. In fact, if there are Confucianists out there who think that Confucius was a god, they probably wouldn't be regarded as genuine Confucianists. But then that just points up the big difference between Buddhism and Confucianism on the one hand and Christianity on the other. In the former, the founders aren't regarded as anything but teachers, whereas in the latter the founder is regarded as something more. That's why one can be a Buddhist without believing in the Buddha's divinity, whereas that's far more problematical with regard to the Christian who doesn't believe in Christ's divinity.

Setanta wrote:

This is something about which we can disagree without rancor, but it is not something about which i see any reason to consider your definition to be more "sensible" than any of those to which i have referred.

Well, considering the fact that I'm right, I can't imagine why you'd disagree with me. But I'm always willing to discuss these sorts of things even with the most misguided of souls.

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@joefromchicago,

I don't find your assertion that Christianity is a special case to be persuasive.

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@joefromchicago,

Good lord. I hope ya'll don't get cramps from patting yourselves on the back.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Quote:

That's odd, I find that reason particularly persuasive.

I rather suspected as much.

You continue to ignore that there is absolutely no evidence for a belief that the putative Christ was divine any earlier than at least a century (and possibly longer, since the evidence is referential to lost documents) after he is reputed to have lived. A century is a long damned time in the history of any cult. Hell, a week can see a sea change in the ideology of a cult.

Given the fact that you are self-deluded about being right, but seem otherwise harmless, i see no reason for any rancorous outcome to this discussion.

1 Reply

@JPB,

JPB wrote:

I disagree that one "can't" be a member of a denomination that recites a creed during it's services without being a hypocrite, although this is precisely why I belong to a non-creedal religion.

Wouldn't that depend on the content of the creed?

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Quote:
This goes to my point throughout this thread. I've never understood why anyone makes any denomination's definition of Christianity an issue.

Truly do not understand what you are getting at here, JPB. Flesh it out a bit and I will respond.

Liberal Christians have a certain interpretation on the nature of scripture and act accordingly. Folks here, yourself included, say they have a false interpretation and are therefore false Christians, hypocrites, delusional, or dishonest.

Roman Catholics have an interpretation on the nature of scripture and act accordingly. You have determined that their interpretation is valid and devout good Catholics are true Christians.

Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians have an interpretation on the nature of scripture and act accordingly. They have interpreted the Roman Catholic implementations of Christianity and declared them false. Some of them go so far as to categorically state that all RCs (devout and otherwise) are going to rot in eternal hell along with the rest of us heathens. A proclamation that doesn't trouble me in the least because I don't believe in hell other than the hell we create for ourselves here on earth, but it might distress some devout RCs to know that these folks are running around calling them hypocrites, delusional, or dishonest and foretelling their eternal damnation in a fiery pit.

You don't understand why they do that. I don't understand why they do that either. Self-righteousness in the extreme, I guess. I don't understand why folks do it to liberal interpretations either. Self-righteousness in the extreme, I guess. It's one thing to believe in something yourself. It's another to proclaim someone else as a hypocrite, dishonest, or delusional because they don't agree with you.

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

I don't find your assertion that Christianity is a special case to be persuasive.

Duly noted.

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

Good lord. I hope ya'll don't get cramps from patting yourselves on the back.

Duly noted.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

You continue to ignore that there is absolutely no evidence for a belief that the putative Christ was divine any earlier than at least a century (and possibly longer, since the evidence is referential to lost documents) after he is reputed to have lived. A century is a long damned time in the history of any cult. Hell, a week can see a sea change in the ideology of a cult.

I'm not sure how I could have ignored that, since this is the first time that point has been mentioned in this thread. But then the tenets of Christianity were pretty vague in the first century A.D. After all, people weren't entirely sure whether Christianity was a new religion or just a form of messianic Judaism. I suppose there might have been some people running around in the first century who called themselves "Christians" and who didn't buy the whole "Christ is the son of god" business, but that just shows how theologically confused everything was at that time. Once the doctrine was hammered out over the succeeding centuries, I'm sure those "Christians" got weeded out pretty thoroughly.

Setanta wrote:

Given the fact that you are self-deluded about being right, but seem otherwise harmless, i see no reason for any rancorous outcome to this discussion.

Everything's worth trying at least once.

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Obama..... not religious?

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