Gobear
Although you and I disagreed recently about something or other — I can’t recall now what it was — I’d like to say here at the risk of repeating myself (surely, I’ve said this before) that you are to be greatly respected. You are as far removed from the hand stabbers as the east is from the west.
That’s kind of an interesting question. Let’s expand the question seeing as how the thread title didn’t seem limited to christians.
**
If you accept the divinity of Christ and the resurrection then you must also believe that one can only get to God by going through Christ. Wouldn’t that make all other religions invalid? Can you accept that Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and others have a personal experience of God that differs from others? If you do accept that then what did Jesus mean when he said that you had to go through him to reach God?
Marc
This thread – hijack notwithstanding – has really rocked my socks. Thank you, Seige, for your description of your position which is a much more concise version of something that I have been trying to put into meaningful words for quite a while. Thank you also to Polycarp and especially gobear for your reasonable, thoughtful and thought-provoking contributions.
In an era of great spiritual tumult, it is surprising but ultimately very blessing to find this kind of discussion here. Thanks again.
Actually, I don’t believe all other religions are invalid. As I said back in the OP, two of my closest friends are Wiccan. Now, I might be able to invoke a loophole in their case because they were once Fundamentalist Christians, thus they have, technically, gone through Jesus (and out the other side, apparently!;)), but my suspicion goes deeper than that.
Upon consideration, no. I won’t hijack my own thread, at least more than I can help. Suffice it to say that my reading of Scripture, my personal experience, and my reasoning has lead me to believe that Christ came to save all people, Christians and non-Christians alike. Even knowing the origins of modern day Wicca, I still have more respect and love for honorable Wiccans than hypocritical Christians and vice versa. Others mileage varies, and I’m willing to accept that, although personally I think they’re missing out on some really neat people.
**tlw]/b], thanks for the compliment, although I’m not sure I’m exactly “concise”!
CJ
Ditto what Lib said (about Gobear) - the capacity for dopers to fully understand the viewpoints of their opponents (all the while not personally holding those viewpoints themselves) is (in my view) the single best feature of the GD forum and the SDMB in general.
Justice and mercy are often incompatible.
Justice involves adhering to a standard, while mercy involves setting aside a standard that requires punitive action for one that does not.
If a higher standard is set aside for a latter, it’s merciful but not just. If a lower standard is set aside for a higher, it’s both merciful (in regards to the lower) and just (in regards to the higher), but not both.
If we consider the highest standard, taking any actions contradictory to it is necessarily unjust. Therefore, mercy and justice are incompatible.
The claim that God is both merciful and just is meaningless. Being just requires mercilessly adhering to a standard; whether that standard requires being merciful in regards to lesser laws is irrelevant.
Marc
Not if God and Christ are one. An identity and a label are not the same[sup]*[/sup]. If He is the Love Everlasting, then all who love are His disciples.
[sup]*[/sup] Consider, for example, what we learned in arithemetic: that the number 2 and the numeral “2” are not the same. There are myriad representations of the number 2, one of which is the numeral “2”.
If God and Christ are one, then all other religions are necessarily invalid.
Vorlon
But what if the standard is mercy?
As I just explained in quite some detail, that is not the case. If “2” represents 2, then is “SQRT(4)” an invalid representation of 2?
"Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him . . . "
Orson Scott Card
Marc, contrary to the heart and soul of every fundamentalist’s message, Jesus never made himself into the only bridge from the storm-wracked mainland to the Isles of the Blest. In context, what he is saying is intended as reassurance, not an exclusionary definition.
Suppose I were a guru who had achieved spiritual depth (that’s a laugh!) and offered (for this small fee, of course) to teach you the Way. But, because I speak in parables and metaphor, you just don’t get it. Then I announce that classes are over; I’m going on to the next phase of my spiritual journey (a long meditative retreat on the Riviera). You’d be concerned that despite all you’d put into it, you have not yet learned the Way.
Now Jesus, like my mildly venal guru, taught in parables and metaphor, and his disciples expected to learn from him the way to the Father. And he announces, after dinner Maundy Thursday, that he’s going away for a spell, but don’t worry; he’s just going to prepare a place for them, and he’ll be back, and they know the way there anyway. Naturally, the’re upset.
So Philip says, “Show us the Father.” And Jesus answers, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” Thomas says, “Hey, we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way.” And jesus says, in effect, “Look, dodo, the Way isn’t some arcane formula for spiritual enlightment. I am the way, and the truth and the life too. Nobody gets to the Father except by (kata me.” (Remember that Jesus says ego eimi – the long-form “I am” – that Jews avoid saying when speaking Greek, because it’s the translation of God’s Name – “Tell them I Am sent you.”)
In other words – me, Jesus, who I am and what I’ve done – is God in human form. Trusting me is the way, the only way, to get there.
Still sounds exclusist? Jesus is, eternally, God the Son, of one Godhead with the Father – He is the active principle in God’s dealings with man. “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” And putting your trust in God – of which he is the Second Person – is how to get to Him. It’s not magical or mystical. He loves all men and women; all they need do is trust in His love. You don’t need to achieve nirvana or satori, or be able to grasp and assent to the Quicunque Vult, or diligently observe and love the 613 precepts of the Law, or perform the hajj – all you’ve gotta do is trust in God’s lovingkindness. And if God is a Trinity, then he who diligently and sincerely seeks after God is in fact seeking Christ – whether he realizes it or not.
Badchad, from what I’ve been able to gather, you are a non-believer who is citing Scripture at me from the fundamentalist perspective in an effort to demonstrate what you see as inconsistencies and hypocrisies in my way of understanding things. There was a perfectly good verb coined to describe that sort of action, but one of the rules here is not to use it in an accusatory manner, so I’ll avoid it. But I would be pleased if you will justify why taking the stance you do is within the rules of practice here, and will undertake to answer you honestly and completely when you have done so. In the meantime, I’ll abide by another maxim for proper practice. I will, however, direct you to one resource you’ve apparently missed: if you see free will and deterministic theism as inherently contradictory, you should read Boethius’s Consolatio Philosophiae, Liber V. It’s been the standard for resolving that paradox for 1500 years now.
As for the other two points raised by TVAA, I thing Libertarian and grimpixie have adequately addressed them. And one further comment: if, as we believe, the Godhead is Trinitarian, with Christ as the active principle, then it was Christ who called Moses and Samuel, Christ who was the still small voice that Elijah heard, Christ who told that Arab to recite, Christ who led the meditating prince to the Four Noble Truths, Christ who spoke to Freyr both times, and Christ who will answer both my prayers and matt_mcl workings in intercession for scott and **jerely[/]b’s future happiness…
** Then that standard must be adhered to without fail. In other words, God can’t mercifully avoid granting mercy. He is compelled to act consistently with the principle.
First, that was not “quite some detail” even by your standards.
Secondly, SQRT(4) is fine; it’s a different representation with the same properties.
SQRT(5) is an invalid representation of 2. It’s a representation of a completely different thing.
If Christ was the incarnation of God, then people following religions incompatible with Christ’s teachings are necessarily incorrect. And since we distinguish between religions by their incompatible doctrines…
Well, you do the math.
Respectfully, Polycarp, you are mistaken.
The highest principle cannot be mercy, because mercy is defined as an exception to a rule. What would mercy be an exception to if it’s the highest rule?
To put it in other words: God is the highest principle, and God cannot be anything other than what He is. He cannot grant mercy from Himself. He is Justice, not Mercy. He can only be Merciful when dealing with lesser laws.
In other other words, mercifully setting aside the highest principle is like violating the actual (not merely theoretical) laws of physics. It’s not conceptually possible.
You can, of course, abandon logic in your consideration of the Divine – but you’ll have to abandon the fruits of logic (like being able to draw conclusions, and having concepts other than the Void).
Vorlon
Actually, He chooses to act consistently with the principle. Morality is a matter of free-will, not compulsion. But still, so what? He does indeed adhere to the standard without fail — He grants mercy without prejudice. “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[ 9:13 Hosea 6:6] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” — Jesus (Matthew 9:13)
It was detail enough. A number and a numeral are not the same; one is a representation of the other.
Now you’re stealing my lines. 
And is entirely beside the point.
Then I am force to conclude that you are disagreeing with me out of sheer habit.
Recall that I said: “If He is the Love Everlasting, then all who love are His disciples.”
Where did you find that definition? I don’t see it here.
I second Diogenes’s recommendation that Siege look into the priesthood! and maybe Polycarp also!
gobear
While you are correct in your assumption that I do not believe in any religion or deities, you are wrong in your conception of the basis of Christian faith.
Says who?
Even if you do not embrace a religion, you ought, for the sake of honesty, to criticize it accurately.
I invite you show me where I have been dishonest or inaccurate in any of my citations or biblical references. I think if you objectively examine my arguments with Polycarp on this and recent threads and you will see that one of us is being dishonest (at best quite inconsistent) and it’s not me.
You have chosen instead to sketch a broad caricature of Christianity and then scorn the sincere Christians in the thread as hypocrites because they do not embrace your strawman.
Again don’t tell me I embrace a strawman, show me. I think I have been pretty good at playing by Polycarp’s rules. He pretty much disowns most of the bible (at least when it’s convenient), yet claims to hold fast to the teachings of Jesus. As such I have made the effort to use the teachings of Jesus specifically to point out his contradictions. I think that is quite fair of me, and if you disagree I would like to hear your reasons why.
Earlier gobear you wrote:
Now this may just be my own idiosyncrasy, but I don’t respond well to threats from bullies, no matter how supernatural they might be.
Are you really going to try and tell me that according to the gospels (which the wishy-washy Christians love to quote) Jesus himself didn’t make (for lack of a better term) threats and lots of them?
Atheists like us can disagree with the believers without being dishonest or discourteous.
I’ve perhaps been discourteous, but the dishonesty is on the other side of the fence. Look again and you’ll see.
** But He could not act inconsistently with the principle while remaining just, and He cannot adhere to the principle without discarding mercy.
If you claim that God is Justice, then you’re placing limits on what God can/will do as long as the concept of Justice has meaning. Otherwise, it’s just a masturbatory naming exercise.
And we use the numeral to represent the number by referencing the rules that define the number’s behavior when we perceive the numeral. If Jesus was the representation of God in this world, people who are following religious traditions that are incompatible with His teachings are, by your claims, not following that which is True, Just, and Good… so they’re up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
No, it’s not. SQRT(5) is not at all the same as SQRT(4), just as Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism are not at all the same as Christianity.
:rolleyes:
Check out the definitions of the related words. They all center around the concept of sparing someone from suffering or punishment that they would otherwise receive; generally implied in the concept is the idea that the person receiving mercy must have the pain somehow “coming to them” for it to be mercy. Saving someone from suffering they didn’t deserve is not generally considered to be merciful (although it is just and compassionate).
Polycarp:
Marc, contrary to the heart and soul of every fundamentalist’s message, Jesus never made himself into the only bridge from the storm-wracked mainland to the Isles of the Blest.
According to the bible he did.
In context, what he is saying is intended as reassurance, not an exclusionary definition.
Your confidence is no evidence not evidence to the accuracy of your statement.
*In other words – me, Jesus, who I am and what I’ve done – is God in human form. Trusting me is the way, the only way, to get there.
Still sounds exclusist?*
YES IT DOES! Those who don’t trust Jesus don’t get there. That “only” word is pretty strong. What part of that is so difficult for you to understand?
Badchad, from what I’ve been able to gather, you are a non-believer who is citing Scripture at me from the fundamentalist perspective in an effort to demonstrate what you see as inconsistencies and hypocrisies in my way of understanding things.
This is somewhat incorrect. Yes I am an unbeliever, but I have been citing scripture from a perspective as close as possible to the way it is written. If a given occurrence is stated to be a parable I take it as a parable, if it is stated as something that really happened I take it as that. The only reason you call my perspective that of a fundamentalist is because their perspective is much closer to what is really written in the bible, while you tend to make up your meanings as you go along. I know you don’t like hearing that but sometimes truths are uncomfortable.
There was a perfectly good verb coined to describe that sort of action, but one of the rules here is not to use it in an accusatory manner, so I’ll avoid it.
There is a perfectly good word coined to describe the way you wimp out of a conversation when it puts you face to face with one of your internal contradictions but since I don’t want to deride that particular part of the female anatomy, I’ll avoid it.
But I would be pleased if you will justify why taking the stance you do is within the rules of practice here, and will undertake to answer you honestly and completely when you have done so.
I honestly can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t be, this is the place for religious debates and you have made statements o-plenty which from all outward appearances sure seem contradictory with the world around us, the bible, the teachings of Jesus and even what you yourself have written earlier. All I have done is point them out and ask for you to explain yourself on these points and how you can have reason to believe in the good taught by Jesus and not accept the bad stuff to. I really don’t think that is against any rules of practice (where are they written anyway) though I would not be surprised if you still say it is so as to avoid any uncomfortable conversations. If that’s justification enough, then start at the top. You might want to start a new thread and if you miss stuff that I think is important I’ll be happy to paste it in.
I will, however, direct you to one resource you’ve apparently missed: if you see free will and deterministic theism as inherently contradictory, you should read Boethius’s Consolatio Philosophiae, Liber V. It’s been the standard for resolving that paradox for 1500 years now.
Oh it’s resolved, no wonder they never have free will vs. determinism threads on the great debates anymore. I’ve read a lot of apologetic BS on the topic in the past and have yet to hear a half way decent explanation. While I haven’t read your source, I have sneaking suspicion the argument is nothing more than the same sewage. Still, if you think otherwise, how about posting a crib note version in your reply and I will be more than happy to comment.
And one further comment: if, as we believe, the Godhead is Trinitarian, with Christ as the active principle, then it was Christ who called Moses and Samuel, Christ who was the still small voice that Elijah heard…
Cool, then the old testament is back in bounds, as such Christ is the one who created evil, Christ is the one who smites babies, Christ is the one who won’t let handicapped people approach his alter, Christ is the one who had 2 she bears maul 40 and 2 children, Christ is the one who made kings rebel against the Jews and then had them and their people killed for it, Christ is the one who put the snake in the Garden of Eden, Christ is the one who flooded the entire planet…
As such please add to my list of questions why you think Christ is loving? Actions do speak louder than words you know.
The longer I reflect on this position, the dumber it seems.
Christ had a number of very specific (and presumably important) teachings about the nature of love, hatred, and sin. Hating someone in your heart is indistinguishable from killing them, and calling someone an idiot makes you worthy of death, etc.
If love were all that were necessary, it would never have been necessary for His disciples to spread His teachings, would it?
Vorlon
Did you forget the question? It was: “What if the standard [of justice] is mercy?”. You had drawn an arbitrary dichotomy between justice and mercy, possibly because you had seen it somewhere on the Internet much in the way people have seen the you-cannot-prove-a-negative nonsense. Your premise that justice and mercy are mutually exclusive is unacceptable; therefore, whatever argument you might form from it is unsound.
The one engaging in naming exercises is you. It is you who is insisting that “Christ” is a name that identifies an entity that cannot be called by any other name. It is you who declares that a religion that calls God “Vishnu” or “Thor” is incompatible with Christianity. It is you who can’t seem to grasp that whether a word sounds like “Kreist” or “Mgumbawa” has no bearing on what the word identifies.
I have not made the claim that “God is Justice”. Pulling rabbits out of hats does not advance your argument.
The proverbial creek idea is yours, not mine. The creek they’re up is the creek they choose. If the doctrine of Love does not appeal to a man, then it is a doctrine that he will reject. But if Love appeals to him, then he is a disciple of Christ, Who is Love. That is true whether he calls himself Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, Atheist, or what have you.
Could you possibly be more clueless? What do you view as the acceptable Christian denominations?
Words without substance are mere hollow sounds. Declaring allegiance to Christ does not a Christian make. You seem to be among those who believe that He came down through the ages to rule an anthill for a day. You’ve divided men into teams, and you have stamped upon the forehead of each your personal judgment of his faith. You picture Jesus as favoring one team over the other as He leads cheers against the other teams. You do not know Who He is.
You didn’t use a related word. You used the word “mercy”. You said that it was defined in a way in which it is in fact not defined. If you now wish to use a different word, state what it is. With all your meandering to save some vestige of validity for your argument, you have yet to show why justice and mercy are incompatible in se.
Love — the facilitation of goodness — is His teaching. His disciples are conduits for Love. “By this will all men know you are my disciples: if you love one another.” — Jesus