Please delineate the difference between “the full truth” and the “fullness of truth”…sounds like semantics to me.
I don’t think any book about God is the full truth; God being much larger in concept than our written words can convey. In the attempt to convey what truth we do know, some are more accurate than others. Between the Quran and the Bible, one is outshined by the other.
Actually, my analogy was quite intentional. Can a person “touch the entire elephant” at once? No. My point (and my assumption) is that we don’t (can’t?) perceive the entire truth given that we are humans. Your assumption is that we can.
At once, no, but over time, yes. I think in the 3 year ministry, the Gospel writers became familair with the whole elephant. This is pretty much the same as the above regarding the fullness of what is true. The 4th blind man, I assumed being the Pope, has more than just the tradition of the first 3; more being the Holy Spirit.
I don’t have the books in front of me, but if memory serves me correctly, Marcus Borg, Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk (perhaps a majority of the Jesus Seminar). Sure, everyone will start assaulting their perspectives/agendas. I am not interested in defending their positions (their positions are not my positions). I merely am pointing out that there is a diversity of opinion, some based on the “Jesus of History” and others based on the “Christ of Faith”.
It sounded like the Jesus Seminar. I thought the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel was a good refutation of it.
This is a great comment. I wonder if there was dialogue between Muslims at the time of the crusades which made the same comment aimed at Christians. The tendency towards this type of despicable behavior seems to be present in both religions (I am not referring soley to Christian vs. Muslims). Both faith traditions continue to produce polarizing groups which believe that they possess the sole truth and authority to interpret and legislate that truth. Didn’t Pres. Bush use the term “crusade” in the early phases of the war? The mentality for “righteous violence”, ultimately justified by religious precepts and principles, is present in both traditions (“just” war doctrine?).
I think the President did use it at one point, and it was unfortunate if apt. To some degree though, I wish a dialog would take place to clarify to the non-Mohammedan world if it is a radical ideology, or if it is more mainstream. I think it is more mainstream.
Define these and prove that “proper” and “respect” are not subjective. “Tolerance” is a framework which recognizes the difficulty in these ultimately subjective values and allows us to operate as a pluralistic society.
Common decency, common courtesy to other humans is proper and just. I respect your human right to have any opinion on any subject, but I am under no obligation to support or accept it. Neither ‘proper’ or ‘respect’ is subjective as long as the opinion is not an action. Ex: NAMBLA might have a Constitutional Right to say they want to have sex with children, but as soon as they do it…
well, lets’s just say other actions will begin to move to stop it.
I think the tolerant framework you describe means to allow all behaviour regardless of social impact, which is what western societes have been gravitating toward. I can tolerate vile speech, but I will not tolerate vile actions.
What is vile and dangerous to society is determined through the civil laws to make things less subjective in our secualr world. Murder-bombers, oppression of minorities, human right restrictions…is not subjective in my view.
Did you know of the
UDHR: Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Can you think of any reason why some groups would object to parts of it? Can you guess who has
objected to it?
