Polycarp while that may be revealed, it’s certainly not objective. How do you determine objectively if someone does in fact love God and man as Jesus indicated?
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Forgive me for quoting Scripture in response to your request for an “objective” referent, but I think you’ll agree that it’s a valid, objectively verifiable answer:
Compare the quote you gave to the one I typed verbatim from the first chapter of Why Christianity Must Change or Die on the first page of this thread.
What you’re saying, GOM, sounds to me like, if he doesn’t accept my idea of what God is, he doesn’t believe in God at all. That’s very much a “No true Scotchman” sort of argument. I do respect your view that Spong’s definition is so far from describing your view as to be something wholly different – but I honestly think that his conceptualization of God and your own are not incommensurate – and both describe and refer to the reality bigger than any of the three of us can grasp. I think a big part of the problem is that we have no agreed-upon working definition of “God” as a term in discourse – and I’m not sure that one is possible.
This is just factually untrue. He may not conceptualize God the way you do but his is definitely not an atheist.
My apologies if that’s not a word you’re comfortable with. I was responding to your own use of the term in your previous post.
I didn’t mean to imply a supernatural “faith” necessarily, I was just asking for some expansion on that thought, (which you did give, despite the clumsy phrasing of my question.
I am also a big admirer of Thich Nhat Hanh. If you aren’t already familiar with Alan Watts, I highly recommend him too. I think you’d like him quite a bit, judging by some of the other writers you’ve mentioned. Look for a book called The Book for a start.
I think the commandments themselves are objective. Poly’s claim was that these two commandments may be counted upon as the objective word of God. The judgement of whether any individual has fulfilled those commandments is a separate issue.
Thanks Diogenes, and I’m sorry if I sounded irritated. I am most certainly not - with you anyway!
I’ll be sure to check out Alan Watts, thanks for the recommendation. I learned of TNT from Homebrew. Dopers are good resources, ya know!
If I may, I’d like to comment on GOM’s posts, specifically where he suggests that Spong does not believe in God, or is “not a Christian”. This is absolutely without a doubt, one of the most infuriating things that Christians do - typically fundamentalist Christians - but not limited to them. It’s this tendency to just assume that they know what everyone else’s True Motives are, or their True Beliefs, or What They Are Really Thinking. It’s arrogant and presumptuous, and demonstrates a complete lack of humility or understanding. Please note, GOM I’m not picking on you per se - you just happen to be the nearest example I could find. Other examples on this board and others are legion.
Did you all know that Spong has received - and continues to receive - death threats? Let me give you a hint - it’s not the atheists, agnostics, or liberal Christians who are making them. It’s fundamentalist Christians - you know, the supposed Bearers Of The Real Truth, the ones who Really Have God “living inside them”. And Who’s not a Christian? Sorry for the beginnings of a rant, but it does upset me a great deal.
Before we do the traditional Great Debates “pile-on-the-Fundy.” one-size-fits-all flamefest, let me note that I’ve known GOM for a couple of years now, and he’s a very kindly man who is outspoken on what he himself believes but is not in the slightest interested in saying something to hurt someone else and will apologize profusely if he inadvertently does so. So please do call him on any errors of fact or assumption in what he posts, but don’t attribute motives to him beyond what he explicitly says, if you all will be so kind.
Firstly, you don’t need my permission to quote scripture, especially in a theological discussion :).
But no, I don’t agree. What fruits qualify one as a false prophet or not? Once again, the question remains: what does Spong mean when he says, “there is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.” In what sense is a standard defined as objective? This is a recurring problem with Spong–he seems more interested in making statements than in making sense.
I think by “objective” that Spong means not subject to interpretation, clear, unambiguous, obvious in its meaning. By standard, I think he means applicable to all people. In other words, Spong is saying that there is no “last word,” so to speak in any written human system of legal or moral behavior. As human understanding of God evolves, then so will revealed script.
RT – Have you read the letter from Heinlein to (IIRC) his agent Lurton Blasingame in which he says what he tried to do in Stranger? Might put a quite different perspective on your comment! (If not, and if you don’t have access to Grumbles from the Grave, I’ll be happy to quote the pertinent parts on request.)
Grumbles from the Grave is a collection of Heinlein’s letters, mostly to John W. Campbell, Jr. (in the early parts) and Lurton Blasingame, his agent (in the later parts), edited and brought out by his wife Virginia after his death. Published by DelRey in 1990, and IIRC available in trade paper as well.
Key passages, from a January 20, 1972 letter to “a reader” (unnamed) (pp. 243-45):
From an October 21, 1960 letter to Blasingame (PP. 228-29):
And I must say that I’ve also known GOM for some time now (over at the PP) and my opinion of him is quite the opposite. I would be willing to admit that your statement would be accurate if you had qualified it by saying that that’s how he acts towards his fellow Christians. Perhaps you don’t see what he does unless he’s doing it to you?
As for how he behaves towards the rest of us, GOM was exremely rude to me at the PP, to the point that his behavior was slipping over into ongoing harassment. He was even temporarily banned from one of the forums there because of his bad behavior.
I’m sorry, but given GOM’s rude and arrogant behavior towards me in the past, I can’t imagine him as being “kindly.” We’re talking about someone who tried to win an argument by telling me that by arguing with him, I was arguing with God. We’re talking about someone whose favorite strategy at the PP was to respond to evidence against his views by simply declaring that the evidence hadn’t actually been presented, and then making insulting comments about how people had “failed” to present any evidence and how they would be better off believing in the tooth fairy.
If you want GOM to have a fresh start here, fine- let people make up their own minds based on how he behaves here. But if you’re going to vouch for his integrity, I think I should point out that you’re his friend, and as such you view him very differently than do the people he’s rude to.
I don’t know how it could be more clear. Spong says God is dead. That places him outside of Christianity. This should not be any big surprise to people who read the Bible. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus says:
21 ** Not every one** that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 ** Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
**
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is actually a Christian. I’m sorry that is upsetting to anyone, but it’s the truth.
2. Since this is supposed to be the board dedicated to finding out the truth, would it be too much to ask for a little proof to back up that rant? I have never threatened Spong and no true Christian I know personally would ever threaten Spong. You seem to be throwing a lot of mud into the discussion.
“suagr” is of course an obscure Gaelic spelling of sugar!
I am reminded of another point - and herein lies the disconnect, I believe.
When the average “Joe on the street” talks of someone as “being a Christian”, they mean that the person in question self identifies as such.
But, when fundamentalist Christians (FC’s) talk of someone as “being a Christian”, they mean that the person in question has the proper beliefs and lives their life in such a way that their God sees fit to send his “Holy Spirit” to actually inhabit this person’s body.
FC’s will sit around and talk about whether or not so-and-so is actually a Christian ( I know, I used to be one, and do that). I remember hearing of a major sin committed by a very public Christian figure, and discussing amongst my other Christian friends how it could have happened, when someone said - “Well, maybe he really isn’t a Christian”. We all nodded very seriously and hoped that wasn’t the case.
And I can assure you, my experience is not isolated.
So now Spong equates Christianity with terrorists?
Thanks for the quote. It opened my eyes a little more…
Seems like 911 was a real big deal for Spong. He sure got a lot of press out of it anyway. Too bad he wasn’t paying attention to the past, oh, say roughly 2000 years.
It’s pretty simple, GOM – Spong’s belief in God is there; he means what he says – and his opinion is that what he calls “the theist God” – more or less, the angry old man with flashing blue eyes and a long beard sitting on a cloud, as in the typical cartoon imagery – is gone, and we need to replace him with a more “modern” concept of who God really is. You and I can disagree with this stance, and I’ll grant that he gets pretty obnoxious in the way he sets up strawmen labeled “fundamentalist Christian” to shoot down – but it’s not proper to label him as “not really a Christian.”
As for the other, there are a lot of people who deem themselves to be Christian who react violently to the sort of stances he takes. Whether or not you or I consider them to be Christians or to be acting in a Christian manner is immaterial; they believe themselves to be Christians acting against a threat to the faith. Mars quoted Spong about some of them; I’ll be glad to provide more evidences from his autobiography, both of threats against him and of people, allegedly good Christians, out-and-out lying in order to discredit him.
Moral: When one slings mud, much of it splashes back on you.
And that’s true for both sides in this sort of warfare. And not limited to religion.
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