none of them are
What makes a religion less invalid than another?
You mentioned a “valid Christian concept” a few posts back. What are these?
bzzzt!
Sorry. Changing the discussion does not make your initial statement true. It just indicates that you are more interested in your own polemics than in the discussion.
What the Christians where I live do is not the topic. Augustinian Original Sin differs from Jewish beliefs of the fall and the differences are based on logic applied, not the text of the scripture.
I have made no argument for the validity of my beliefs, (whatever they may be). I have simply noted that your declaration that
is, itself without validity. You are free to disagree with any belief, but you have established no criterion by which adherence to scripture is the test of validity… That is nothing more than a belief that you hold. You are free to believe it; we are free to dismiss it as non-scriptural, illogical, and invalid.
And that is a belief that you are free to hold. When you go beyond your personal belief to set rules by which you pretend to establish “validity,” you fail.
I’m not sure you can really determine that. Some may be more preferable to a Secular POV but I think they are all equally invalid. For someone to say “I think there is probably some type of god up there but I can’t tell you what kind” I guess I wouldn’t have much of anything to object too. But when they say “God exists and he lives on top of a mountain and he hates people that are lazy” I’ve got to say they have no valid justification at all for making such statements.
What you consider a ‘valid Christian concept’ is going to depend on which Christian you ask, since Christians don’t all believe the same things, and never have.
That said, “God is a Trinity” is a very widely shared Christian belief that’s not explicitly in the Bible (although the claims that Jesus is God is there, and so is the Trinitarian invocation). Neither is the idea that marriage should be monogamous (as Luther told the Margrave of Hesse, famously). Neither is the idea of purgatory, or auricular confession, or just war theory, or the idea that life begins at conception, or most of the Marian doctrines with the exception of the virgin birth, or the details of heaven and hell, or the details of how Jesus had divine and human natures.
Valid:
having a sound basis in logic or fact
It’s really — not — about my personal objection to your faith. If I died getting hit by a bus, nothing would change, your beliefs would still have the same lack of logic or fact to sustain them as Valid statements of reality.
And your silly comment that a Christian belief not found in the bible is invalid remains, itself, invalid. It has no basis in logic or fact.
Ones that are supported by the text of the bible
wow!!!
Look, I can say that I — think — Karl Marx would support proposition XYZ but unless Marx actually wrote about proposition XYZ in his works I can’t really say that he supports XYZ. Can you understand this very simple concept???
So how do you determine what is a valid christian concept left out of the bible but now included than it simply being someones opinion?
Is it possible for any Christian belief to be invalid and, if so, how?
Please explain how you determine what christian concepts that are not in the bible are valid christian concepts and not just an opinion?
What exactly are we disagreeing about??? Multiple interpretations and differing accounts and differing opinions on what is or is not cannon christian doctrine, all of that points to the weakness and inconsistency of christian beliefs. You are certainly not doing a good job here of arguing for the Validity of Christianity as a whole, as Christianity itself being a true and valid statement about reality when you continue to catalouge and repeat it’s various fragmented nature.
There are a number of Christian concepts and beliefs that are attested in the late first and early second centuries that do not appear in the bible. Those that have continued for the last 1900+ years are certainly valid Christian beliefs. I already mentioned the sacraments. I have no intention of providing a list that you will simply ignore.
That you are stuck in a post-Lutheran, Fundamentalist mindset that fails or refuses to recognize anything outside your preconceived notions is not my problem.
You are free to believe that all religion or any particular religion is not valid. My specific objection was to your separate erroneous claim that I have now quoted on multiple occasions. Your (unstated) circular argument that the only “valid” religious belief, (in which you do not believe, anyway), is that which is found in scripture–a position for which you have provided neither logic nor facts to support.
The bible is not an instruction manual for Christianity. Christianity existed before there was a new testament. It does not define Christianity, nor does it define what constitutes a “valid Christian belief”.
So then it is consensus and not the individual merit of each claim that determines which are accepted and which are not. Supposedly of course ideas that were particularly distant from the bible would never be made consensus opinion, one would assume.
No, it’s not circular logic. Don’t you remember the example about Marx. You can’t say that Marx supported position XYZ unless he specifically spoke about proposition XYZ. You could of course say he would probably support XYZ but you can not flat out claim that he would. I don’t know what type of logical construct that is but I do know it is — not — a flawed from of circular reasoning.
That is perhaps one of the most bizarre statements I have ever heard.
Yes, it did, but all we have to go on is the NT and attached writings (gnossitic gospels, etc) as well as a limited historical record
Then what does
Well said mate.
Your circular argument is that the religion is based on the scripture and if it not in the scriptures it is not valid.
You have provided no evidence that the beliefs of Christianity are all found in scripture. Most are, certainly, but your original assertion was that every belief had to be found in scripture and that is simply not true.
1- Of course there can be (potentially) ideas and comments Jesus made that were not recorded into the bible.
2- But you can not say proposition XYZ is something Jesus would support unless it actually got recorded
3- why are you ignoring the analogy about Marx
4- if Jesus was so super duper all powerful perfect, how is it possible that part of his message got left out of the bible