Great, that simplifies things. How do you explain a 50-50 split within your own congregation on the central tenet of Christianity? Is the Holy Spirit like a magic 8-ball, giving random answers? Is Satan masquerading as the Holy Spirit and deliberately lying to half of your congregation? Or is everyone just deluding himself, and believing what he wants to believe?
In any case, why should I have any more respect for your belief in the Holy Spirit than some cat lady’s belief in John Edward?
ETA: In case you’ve never heard of him, John Edward had a TV show where he claimed to talk to the spirits of the audience members’ departed loved ones. And he makes millions doing it.
We don’t generally believe the Holy Spirit works by shouting out things to people, more like nudges (though I can’t speak for everyone) - as some theology professor I once heard put it (paraphrasing), ‘it is arrogant for us to say this is God’s will, the best we can say is that I feel that this is God’s will’. We are more than allowed to disagree with each other on what God is calling us to do, or to doubt. We have more than enough space for all of that. We engage in conversation to figure out how our mission manifests itself within that space.
Now, granted whether or not Jesus was physically resurrected is not usually something that is going to result in much practical day to day changes - its more academic. Though something like when we called a gay pastor in the early 2000s did have a practical effect and from what I understand (it was before my time), the conversation did get a bit heated and people did end up leaving the congregation after we did so. And we believe the Holy Spirit was there in that conversation, as we prayerfully ask the Spirit to be with us in all of our attempts at discernment.
Your respect for my beliefs or my congregation’s beliefs or my denomination’s beliefs are entirely up to you. If you’d like, you can look at the fruits of my denomination’s beliefs (ELCA). We tend to do good things in the name of Christ (at least I believe so) - I think we are focusing on a social statement about mass incarceration for the next Churchwide Assembly next summer. Though if you don’t have respect for my beliefs (that’s ok too), you can, I hope, respect I have those beliefs and respect conversation (what I mean is that I’m fine to discuss my beliefs with those who are cordial about it, but not necessarily those who are just trying to make a joke out of me and attack everything without listening).
I do good things too. I don’t need a church to do that. I may respect your actions and I respect you but I do not respect your religion. I do not respect the people you stand with. You claim not to stand with them but they share your bible so you stand a lot closer to them than I do. You, apparently, missed my remarks before so I will repeat them:
I may like you. I do. But I will never ever - ever - like your religion.
Why is this a bad thing? With 40,000 denominations, it makes it more likely that any given person can find one he is comfortable with. Let them compete with each other in the free market of ideas. If we’re lucky, the moderate ones will be successful, and the extremists will dwindle.
May I ask what you’d feel if someone said similar things to you, but instead of religious used nationality? I mean that someone said I respect you, but I do not respect the people you stand with, regarding the USA, and using, say Dick Cheney as their totem. You may claim not to stand with him, but you stand a lot closer to him than someone from the UK does. They may like you, but they will never ever - ever - like your country. Would you consider that fair?
And y’all should totally give us moderates the support (you know, up to a point, not telling you to betray your beliefs or anything) rather than propping up the extremists :). We may actually be able to get some stuff done, rather than convincing moderate religious people that atheists are no friends of ours at all.
Wouldn’t bother me at all. The USA is a violent imperialist nation and anyone in a foreign country that hated america would have my complete support.
I have no affinity at all for dick cheney or the republican party, i am 100% against everything they stand for. Let people criticize me as an american, it won’t matter to me, because i know i have nothing to do with the republican party.
Perish the thought. You’ll know when I’m bothered. I personally appreciate very much that you are taking the time to give your perspective, and we are getting to hear from a Christian who professes to be something other than a fundamentalist.
Except they weren’t homeless travelers in these instances, and are in another guest’s house. Is the HS guiding you with this answer? And no, that was Carrier, not me, and his Christian opponent didn’t answer that aspect. It’s only about 5-8 minutes or so of the video clip, so I’d appreciate your comment on it if you have the time. And I did go to the pertinent pericopes, and have read all which the story is told in the synoptic gospels. I’ll only cite two brief parts, but if I’d missed something it wasn’t intentionally. I’ve read through quite a few parallel texts as well. I can’t find anything that states, implies or suggests they did not have access to water.
Luke:11:37 While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.
Mark 7:17—*When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them. “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles…" *
Concerning what we know now about germ theory today, you still stand by it is a wise and divine thing for Jesus to do? The main thrust of Carrier’s argument is how many untold lives could have been saved, had Jesus told them about germ theory then, but it seems they already were a bit wiser than he in the hygiene department. Instead we have to wait some 2,000 years to make this discovery, and it wasn’t through the HS, but through guesswork and experimentation through science. Why didn’t Jesus say to do this instead of saying we don’t have to wash because nothing was supposed to harm them? To say nothing how rude he was to them in their own home, and even more lives he killed by instructing him to do the very opposite of the wise thing that should have been done. In school, how many times did your teachers call you a fool? I’m guessing none. Is this an effective teaching method, and would you recommend others emulating it?
Does the HS ever give you bad advice, or is it always the receiver interpreting the results getting it wrong, if ever? Is everything about the way you interpret your version of Christianity and the HS dictate and have conditions on it to where it’s impossible to be tested? While we are on Jesus’ teaching, it’s always going to be shown to be right, and is there is anything that could possibly falsify it? If you agree there are things that are obviously incorrect about Jesus’ teachings, give me some examples. A fundamentalist cannot do it, I’m just curious if a Christian that claims to be a moderate can.
Yes, I do. He’s talking about deciding who is or is not righteous based on slavishly following the law. Even if the person has greed or wickedness within them. Like the folks you may know who go to church every Sunday and thinks that makes better them followers of Christ than those who don’t but are horrible people throughout the week.
He’s not talking about the best way to keep healthy. And frankly, I think it’s irrelevant to His entire point. These passages are dealing with law and grace, and the washing was part of the law, similarly to not eating pork or shellfish. The notions of stop getting upset about someone not washing hands to eat was to showcase that righteousness is about acting with grace, but about following 613 laws.
Do you really believe that even a moderate believer is going to say that God is or has been wrong? No, in answer to your question, neither God the Spirit, nor God the Son were or are incorrect. It’s part and parcel of the faith. How we interpret it may have been incorrect, but God is never so.
This is why I can respect some aspects of faith: it causes some people to try to become better people. Clinging to absolute literal interpretation can actually distance someone from the pursuit of goodness.
It’s what Jesus spoke of when saying that it isn’t what goes into one’s mouth that matters, but what comes out. A man might keep all the rules of the law, but if he says, “You fool” to someone, he’s put all that striving into peril.
There are questions the Bible can’t help with. Was Creation ex nihilo, or an emanation of God? Could a perfectly spiritual God have created base matter? Did God participate in Creation, or decree it from the outside? Did he get his hands dirty, moving rivers and mountains around, or was he entirely remote, letting the earth raise itself at his word? Does God participate in history, saving one Emperor, letting another die, plucking one falling sparrow from its fate but not acting to save another?
Is God a “person” or a “force?” Is God a rational entity, or mysterious beyond all human conception?
The Bible can’t help with this: every believer has to find his own way.
That’s really a despicable thing to say. He said he could sympathize with people in other countries who hate America for, e.g, its support of brutal dictators. If you don’t know enough history to understand why he says that, fine, but you have no right to twist his words into support for mass murderers, let alone imply that he may commit murder and treason himself.
He could have said “washing of the hands is to stop physical ills, but spiritual ills are more important and cannot be addressed only by the washing of hands.”
That gives the same message, and doesn’t give the green light to stop a sanitary practice that could have saved the lives of millions.
We are all well aware of the bewildering diversity of Christian belief. I was of the opinion that this was the result of different somewhat logical chains of reasoning from certain parts of the Bible, and the diversity is because you can’t do experiments. Kind of like how scientific thought was diverse before the scientific method. But you say, in your congregation at least, the diversity is from what each person things the Holy Spirit tells him or her. Kind of like saying you like the flavor of ice cream that you do because the Holy Ice Cream Spirit moved you that way.
Could the reason that you don’t answer my questions about why you select some parts and not others as inspired be that you don’t even see that there could be a rational choice process?
Do you reject the creation story because of science or because the Holy Spirit told you it was bunk?
It does seem to run a slight risk of Montanism, if every individual can “prophesy” as he will. But that’s what has to come from giving individuals the right to an individual interpretation of scripture, which is one of the nobler aims of the Reformation.
Is a pretty despicable thing to say - and the immediate folks “in a foreign country” that “hate america” are by and large terrorists - so that was clearly the implication he’s making - I just asked how far his “complete support” went.
That’s far beyond “sympathy” - and even that, when it comes to terrorist organizations like ISIS, etc - is pretty fucking despicable.
Aha. Now that you’ve clarified your thoughts, I withdraw my assertion that it was a despicable thing to say. It was an ignorant thing to say.
I would guess that of the millions of people in foreign countries who hate America, the percentage who would even consider becoming a terrorist is less than one. There are a few people I hate, most of them members of the previous administration. Most of my posts about Bush lying us into a war conclude that I hope he burns in hell, which is about as much as I can possibly hate a person. But I wouldn’t dream of attacking him. In fact, since I’m an atheist who doesn’t believe in hell, even my hateful wish is toothless.
Wrong. The NRA, the PLO, The Shining Path, Sandinista, Che Guvera, they all have my sympathy right up to the point where they start killing innocent people. In fact, in some way, they are worse than their oppressors, because they become what they claim to hate and are willing to kill to do it.
I don’t necessary see that in itself as a good or bad thing, but that’s 40,000 different truths one can choose to be comfortable with at the present (and growing weekly), can they all be right? If I was to start asking about more specific things, can anyone ever be shown to be wrong as long as the HS is guiding them when talking about holy writs?
Irrelevant to you maybe, and obviously getting to the big house is the bigger picture, he’s talking about a lot of things, not just that, and before we can assume he knows what he is talking about in the next life, let’s see what he knows about this life. If you went down the list of the 613 (some experts cite 621), how many of these laws do you think are good laws and which are to be followed to day? Any?
Which shows why it is the hallmark of a false belief system. No need to even separate the moderate from the fundamentalist in this regard, your answer is the same. Hopefully, other moderates could, if not, maybe there really isn’t that much difference between them after all. You, like they, have a system set up which God, the Son, and the HS always speak truth, and to ensure they are always truthful, its followers are all too ready to take the wrap, saying they or others, or maybe even themselves (least likely), just didn’t interpret it correctly although they are all claiming the HS is moving them. When it can never be tested, never be falsified; there will never be anything useful you can do with this information. Sure, it’s a cheap placebo, it makes people feel good, but that’s about it.