Jesus said I am the way.

@Debra Law,

You and Foxfyre are great Debra at quoting claims that Christian faith had in some manner been a benefit to our culture it would be nice however if you and the people you so cheerfully quoted making those claims would come up with just one little example of this benefit.

Second the one female follower of "Jesus" was somehow turn into what we would now call a sex trade worker without any support of that claim in the bible itself.

Women had a long history of being down graded by the followers of the Christian faith and the Jewish faith that it grow out of.

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@aidan,

Arrogance stems from confidence and repression of alternatives can be justified on the basis of the greater good.

The anti-Christian cannot explain how to get from 400BC to here without Christianity. We accept it was messy but that was because of human nature.

And we are not through yet.

There is no other system with any hope.

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@aidan,

But what you are reading into what I said is not what I said.

You and Bill seem to wish to judge the Church on the worst of its history--most of which it has long abandoned--rather than all the good that has been and is being accomplished.

I have not here nor anywhere else on the internet or anyplace else EVER suggested what somebody must or must not do to get into heaven.

And I did not say that if I and all other Christians left the Earth that "the enactment of their version of spiritual truth would result in hell on earth". What I did say was this:

Quote:

I believe that should you remove all the Christians from Earth, the Holy Spirit will go with them, and those left behind will indeed then get a graphic image of what the depths of hell will look like.

An objective reading of my statement suggests a much different meaning than the one you assigned to it.

But if you want examples, consider what Germany was like under Hitler and what the people became capable of after the Church was crushed or suppressed. Consider Russia under Lenin and Stalin after the Church was banned and the tens of millions of citizens slaughtered. Consider Communist China after Mao outlawed the Church - an estimated 70 million slaughtered and human rights brutally suppressed. Look to many smaller nations devoid of human rights and immersed in human suffering and you won't find the Church more than barely visible there if visible at all. Even Japan where Christians are a small majority has benefitted from the presence of Christian missionaries in years past and, though mostly non-Christian--still embraces many Christian customs and has reformed itself from its cruel and savage past.

It is not hard for me to believe that if you remove Christianity from the mix, the world will become a much more savage, dog-eat-dog, brutal, and inhumane place to the point of being intolerable for many people.

Merry Andrew doesn't seem as convinced as I am that the Church has had a profound effect on the development of civilization, especially Western civilization, and I respect his point of view. I simply disagree with it.

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@spendius,

The anti-Christian cannot explain how to get from 400BC to here without Christianity. We accept it was messy but that was because of human nature.

And we are not through yet.

There is no other system with any hope.
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Would you like to support any of the above statements of your with logic or in any other manner other then just stating them?

Do you just wish us to take those claims on faith alone?

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@spendius,

I'm not arguing that Christianity in and of itself has not been a power for good in the world. I'm not arguing that we'd be better off in a totally 'godless' world.
You can call the force that impels people to look outside their own self and take others into account and do good and love their neighbor 'the Holy Spirit', if you want - or you can call it something else - as long as it's there.
It's when someone insists it be named one thing instead of another (even though they're the same thing and producing the same effect) that it becomes dangerous.
And I can't reconcile that with what I learned about what Jesus taught.

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

You and Bill seem to wish to judge the Church on the worst of its history--most of which it has long abandoned--rather than all the good that has been and is being accomplished.

If you can write that about me - then you have never read anything I've said here or anywhere else on this forum about Christianity and MY church. I don't believe in ONE church. But I do know my church and my spiritual truth - and I do not wish to and in fact do NOT judge it on the worst of its history.

Our problem is one of semantics Foxfyre. You seem to be misreading me- and I seem to be misreading you - but from what I've read here tonight- I'd feel uncomfortable sitting in the pew at your church- I can tell you that- and I wouldn't want my children to learn that version of Christianity.
But you are more than able in my view of things - to attribute as much value an meaning to it as it gives you and your children.

I wouldn't be able to find very much peace in it myself.

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@spendius,

Quote:

And Flaubert researched the lot and put it all in Salammbo.

Not really. Flaubert cherry picked scenes out of Polybius's book I of his Histories and then wrote his fiction:Salammbo.

BTW...does the slave Spendius get crucified in Polybius's telling?

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@Foxfyre,

My own spiritual journey has taken me deeply into all of the world's great religions, and I am 100% convinced that each and every one has pieces of the truth. Each and every one has accomplished some good among the people who embrace it. But none, except perhaps proportionately the tiny group that is Judaism, can claim the far reaching force for good that Christianity can claim.
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And I am 100 percent convince that not one of the world faiths had any connection with the real universe at any point and therefore none of them contain any truth.

Second I am also convince that without the brain washing of young minds before they can form any kind of defense against nonsenses, all such faiths would die out within a generation.

Third Christians have no ground to claim that their faith had been a force of good in any manner.

Just one lifetime before mine a great Catholic nation place millions of Jews and others in gas chambers and the mother church of the faith stood silent as it was happening.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

Would you like to support any of the above statements of your with logic or in any other manner other then just stating them?

Do you just wish us to take those claims on faith alone?

They are obvious. What can we do about you not knowing what went before. 2,000 years is nothing. An eye blink. Human life gets less nasty, less short and less brutish with every day that goes by. Okay--not fast enough but we will get there.

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@Foxfyre,

But if you want examples, consider what Germany was like under Hitler and what the people became capable of after the Church was crushed or suppressed
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LOL in what way and in what manner was the church harm in any manner in Nazis Germany!!!!!

It was good Christians going to their churches and worshiping Jesus who was also cheerfully running the inter structure that allow 6 millions or so people to be kill in the death camps.

Trying to do a little history re-write here in the name of Jesus are you?

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@aidan,

aidan wrote:

Quote:
You and Bill seem to wish to judge the Church on the worst of its history--most of which it has long abandoned--rather than all the good that has been and is being accomplished.

If you can write that about me - then you have never read anything I've said here or anywhere else on this forum about Christianity and MY church. I don't believe in ONE church. But I do know my church and my spiritual truth - and I do not wish to and in fact do NOT judge it on the worst of its history.

Our problem is one of semantics Foxfyre. You seem to be misreading me- and I seem to be misreading you - but from what I've read here tonight- I'd feel uncomfortable sitting in the pew at your church- I can tell you that- and I wouldn't want my children to learn that version of Christianity.
But you are more than able in my view of things - to attribute as much value an meaning to it as it gives you and your children.

I wouldn't be able to find very much peace in it myself.

You don't believe in ONE church? Then you consider your congregation or denomination as the only one that will get to heaven? One member thinks my beliefs are arrogant. I wonder what he might think about that? Smile

I love you Aidan and admire you as much as anybody on A2K. But I'm guessing you don't have a clue about much of what I believe or what "my church" is. I do believe in ONE church with all my heart, more than two billion strong across the Earth, and I know it to be a big enough tent to accept many different points of beliefs including those that are the most rigid, nitpickery, and/or restrictive--I have often joked that one of God's mansions in heaven will be reserved for those who will be happy only if they believe they are the only ones there.

In the end I don't think God is going to care about our individual beliefs or theology or doctrines about much of anything all that much, but His interest is that we love Him and allow Him to be God. And in the final analysis, I think we're all going to be surprised at how wrong we got so many things.

But I don't require that anybody share my belief about that either. Smile

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@panzade,

Flaubert took 5 years of concentrated study on Salammbo.

Yes-really. Cherry picked my arse.

I can argue the other case. But it involves science as a curse.

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@spendius,

They are obvious. What can we do about you not knowing what went before. 2,000 years is nothing. An eye blink. Human life gets less nasty, less short and less brutish with every day that goes by. Okay--not fast enough but we will get there.
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Yes we are slowly improving however it is in spite of religion not because of it!

What arguments can you bring to the table that faith of any kind in the supernatural had been helpful?

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@BillRM,

Look mate- don't pull that **** on me.

I asked you to explain getting from the horrorshow BC to now. You bring that to the table. The horrorshow had been going on into the foggy ruins of time. What could have changed it?

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

Then you consider your congregation or denomination as the only one that will get to heaven?

no - quite the contrary actually. Foxfyre - I don't even consider myself to have a congregation or denomination.
I meant that I don't believe there is necessarily only one church (or denomination or congregation).
I have real trouble aligning myself with some churches or denominations or congregations that call themselves 'christian'.
I feel more comfortable looking at it on a person to person basis.

Quote:

In the end I don't think God is going to care about our individual beliefs or theology or doctrines about much of anything all that much, but His interest is that we love Him and allow Him to be God. And in the final analysis, I think we're all going to be surprised at how wrong we got so many things.

But I don't require that anybody share my belief about that either.

In fact, I do share that belief- almost exactly as you just stated it. Maybe I could feel comfortable sitting in a pew in your church. Thanks for explaining that to me.

Quote:

I love you Aidan and admire you as much as anybody on A2K.

Thank you for saying that Foxfyre. You're a very kind person - and I think if I ever got to know you - I'd love you too- Laughing

- (I have to say it that way because I just remembered that I told Linkat I didn't think I could say I loved someone without having met them)- but I do mean that because you seem fair-minded, thoughtful, and I also admire and love your passion and commitment.

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@spendius,

Quote:

The anti-Christian cannot explain how to get from 400BC to here without Christianity. We accept it was messy but that was because of human nature.

That sounds remarkably close to what I said just a couple of posts earlier.

We decry (and rightly so) the excesses of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. We forget that this sort of behavior was common for the time period and that, had it not been the Christian Church doing the judging, it would have been some pagan cult. And their methods of execution were every bit as cruel and lethal as the auto da fe. Our gotting from there to here would have been messy in any case, regardless of what the state religion was. And there was always a state-sancioned religion.

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@spendius,

I am confuse you wish me to list all the factors that allow human to form cultures beyond simple hunter/gathers in the last few thousand years?

There is a good book with a title Guns, Germs and Steel or some such title that will cover some of the likely factors involved however why in the “hell” would you be of the opinion that religion or faith of any kind have any connection with this change in human culture?

Only because you think that they had a similar time frame?

If that is your reason for a conclusion that there is a connection then I would also suggest getting a few books out of the library concerning logic.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

You and Foxfyre are great Debra at quoting claims that Christian faith had in some manner been a benefit to our culture it would be nice however if you and the people you so cheerfully quoted making those claims would come up with just one little example of this benefit.

Bill. Pay attention.

Foxfyre's post--which was the subject of several accolades for its content and writing--was plagiarized from Bill Muehlenberg’s book review of Professor Alvin Schmidt's book entitled, "How Christianity Changed the World."

AGAIN, here is the link to the review:

A review of How Christianity Changed the World. By Alvin Schmidt.

I posted the book review in its entirety.

Compare Muehlenberg's book review to Foxfyre's post, and you will see that Foxfyre lifted most of the content of her post (nearly word for word, thought for thought, with slight reformation) from the review.

Even though several posters gave Foxfyre praise for her post, she did not acknowledge that the credit belongs to Muehlenberg (the book's reviewer) and Professor Schmidt (the book's author).

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Actually I plagerized one of my own sermons in which I gave Schmidt and Muehlenberg credit for the phrases I used. I apologize for not footnoting those in my post, but I copied and pasted some of the content from my sermon text and didn't pick up the credits. Muehlenberg is one of my favorite reviewers for Zondervan.

In general the thesis was a summary from this book:

http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/28300000/28301536.JPG

But Debra is correct that some of the phrases were Muehlenberg's and not mine.

I do 100% recommend the book which is one of the best I've seen on this topic.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

Just one lifetime before mine a great Catholic nation place millions of Jews and others in gas chambers and the mother church of the faith stood silent as it was happening.

There's a bit of historical revisionism here Bill as I don't think Germany in the 30's can be regarded as a great Catholic nation. Sure, German Catholics compromised with evil and if they had opposed the Nazi regime from the beginning, perhaps Hitler would not have felt secure enough at home to venture out searching for Lebensraum.

By the time Hitler launched Barbarossa in 1941, the die was cast and German Catholics were comforted by the fact that Germany had set out to vanquish the communist hordes from the Soviet Union, the true enemy of German Catholicism

It's not really accurate to say Pope Pius XII stood silent while the ovens ran 24/7. For example:

Quote:

In January 1940, for instance, the pope issued instructions for Vatican Radio to reveal "the dreadful cruelties of uncivilized tyranny" the Nazis were inflicting on Jewish and Catholic Poles. Reporting the broadcast the following week, the Jewish Advocate of Boston praised it for what it was: an "outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi Poland, declaring they affronted the moral conscience of mankind." The New York Times editorialized: "Now the Vatican has spoken, with authority that cannot be questioned, and has confirmed the worst intimations of terror which have come out of the Polish darkness." In England, the Manchester Guardian hailed Vatican Radio as "tortured Poland's most powerful advocate."

and

Quote:

His first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, rushed out in 1939 to beg for peace, was in part a declaration that the proper role of the papacy was to plead to both warring sides rather than to blame one. But it very pointedly quoted St. Paul"“there is neither Gentile nor Jew”"using the word "Jew" specifically in the context of rejecting racial ideology. The New York Times greeted the encyclical with a front-page headline on October 28, 1939: "Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism." Allied airplanes dropped thousands of copies on Germany in an effort to raise anti-Nazi sentiment.

... many notable Jews thanked the Pope

Quote:

During and after the war, many well-known Jews"Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, Moshe Sharett, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, and innumerable others"publicly expressed their gratitude to Pius. In his 1967 book Three Popes and the Jews, the diplomat Pinchas Lapide (who served as Israeli consul in Milan and interviewed Italian Holocaust survivors) declared Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands."

Common knowledge or sentiment has the Catholic church sharing culpability for Nazi atrocities...as Sidney Hook once observed:

Quote:

‘In any crucial situation the behaviour of the Catholic Church may be more reliably predicted by reference to its concrete interests as a political organisation than by reference to its timeless dogmas.’

1 Reply

Jesus said I am the way.

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