Flip-flop thread #3 - indifference

[RyanL]

trumpet152:

I would like to see some of these “I AM” statements he made. You will notice that they are all in John if you look.

True, but his claims to divinity are not.

John, of course, is the least trustworthy of all the gospels. Many scholars beleive to be written around 120 AD! By this time, the “Christ alone is God” idea had taken effect. Now, I would agree that those who believe this will go to heaven, for Christ is God just like we are.

Again, saying something is so doesn’t make it so. *Some * “scholars” think it was written in 120 AD, but the preponderance place it earlier. Regardless, it was eye witness testimony which was recorded; why would you claim that it is somehow less “trustworthy” than anything we have written about Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle (whose sayings I assume you don’t doubt), despite writings attesting *their *words and actions being written *much *later. Once again, you have not presented evidence.

On the Old testament statements, let’s rise above that shall we? Surely we are not going to lower ourselves to ancient pagan myths?

Again, you assume that they are “pagan myths” despite their historical accuracy. Saying something is so doesn’t make it so.

Just because some of Christ’s disciples who misunderstood his teacings accepted these books, it certainly doesn’t mean we should.

How do you know they misunderstood? Aren’t you basing this on an underlying presupposition which begs the question? Invalid argument.

On the New Testament quote, I doubt Jesus said those words. Again, I would imagine that the author of the book was biased when recording this “historical” statement.

Doubt all you want, but don’t claim it as fact without presenting some evidence. Additionally, you have not stated what “bias” with which the authors of the NT wrote. Was it their desire to be persecuted by the Jews and Romans? Their desire to be forced underground into secret worship? Their desire to be thrown to the lions? What, praytell, was their “bias”?

Forgive my typo in the above post. It should read that Jesus was the means in which they heard this** in that area**. This also means during that time.

Moses lived thousands of years before the historical Jesus. Please explain your anachronism.

No, this is of course not an attempt to fool me.

I’m glad you see how silly that would make you appear.

They were deceiving themselves.

Says who? How could you know this with certainty? Is it because it would make Jesus a Liar, Lunatic, or Lord if you were to believe it?

This way the Jesus they followed for all those years was more than a guru. He was the YHWH of the Jews in their minds. They didn’t understand what he really taught. Many teachers are not respected in their own time (Jesus was one of these, for he was crucified).

Again, there’s a hidden assumption in your argument that they don’t understand the teachings of Jesus → invalid argument, as it begs the question. This also fails to account for the resurrection and the eye witness testimony to other miracles.

Point taken. I can admit a mistake. I will than fall back to the biased opinion of the authors of the gospels. This takes care of the issue just as well.

Well done for admitting error; the world would be a better place if we could all do likewise. As for the bias…as asked above, please explain what this “bias” was.

God Bless,
RyanL

*P.S.
Moderately challenging…well done, sir!
*

 

[BlestOne]

Marquette:

The last time I went to church the guy gave a sermon on John 3:16. Jesus died for the WHOLE WORLD, so get real. You’ll notice it didn’t say “for Catholics” or for Lutherans" or whatever. WHOLE WORLD means what it says. So if he died for everybody, everybody gets saved. Now I know you gotta believe in Him and all, but even Moslems believe Jesus was a prophet, so they’re saved too. And a lot of Jews I know say he was a good teacher and all. Maybe they don’t see Him as Messiah or whatever, but that’s ok too. And Jesus never condemned anybody in the Bible, He just told them to stop sinning. Well most people I know try to be good, decent people. Sure they screw up, but you know, basically, they try to be nice to their friends and family. Plus the Bible says God loves everybody. Shoot, He IS love. How could any God who IS LOVE send someone to hell? In the end, I believe every person who has ever lived will be saved because Jesus died for ALL and God loves everybody.

Probably Hitler and Stalin will go to hell because they were pure evil. http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon5.gif But still it says Jesus died for everybody so probably for them too.

Satan believes in Jesus…Does that mean he’s saved too? Hell is obtained by rejecting the love of Christ…God doesn’t condemn us to hell, we condemn ourselves if we reject him. As for Stalin and Hitler, we don’t know about that…they could have seen the light and repented. Satan however, was truly arrogant in his seperation from heaven and has sealed his own fate, just as we do by choosing to believe or reject, we decide the fate of our souls.

Yes God is love, and no, just knowing of him does not save you…
Yes Christ died to save us all, but we have to choose to accept this gift of salvation. How do we choose? We learn more, we imitate the life of Christ…isn’t that the greatest form of worship? To actually shape our lives by doing as Christ would have done? Would he have just sat back and said, “I am the Son of Man. I don’t need to pray or worship or do anything to help man find my Father, I am already saved because I am the Son?” Of course he didn’t, during his time on earth, he taught us about his father, he healed the infirm and gave hope to the hopeless, then he gave us the ultimate gift, his life in exchange for our sins. We still have to choose to receive his gift to us. We do this by honoring him, teaching our children, doing what he would have done…Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving hope to the hopeless (visiting our brethern in jail), by doing these things we say to our Lord and Savior…We believe, we want to show you to others, use me for your glory Lord that I might show others your love and lead them to you.

 

[trumpet152]

*RyanL, you certainly know your stuff (and your way around wikipedia!). Your making it very difficult to be a skeptic! *

RyanL:

True, but his claims to divinity are not.

Exactly my point! Christ claimed divinity. But he did not do so in the YHWH sense, but he knew that we are all God. And if we are all God, than a claim to divinity is perfectly acceptable.

Again, saying something is so doesn’t make it so. Some “scholars” think it was written in 120 AD, but the preponderance place it earlier. Regardless, it was eye witness testimony which was recorded; why would you claim that it is somehow less “trustworthy” than anything we have written about Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle (whose sayings I assume you don’t doubt), despite writings attesting their words and actions being written much later. Once again, you have not presented evidence.

John mentions an act that happened around AD 70, therefore it was written after this point. As for an exact date, I’ll leave this to the scholars. My only point is that the book isn’t trustworthy. We don’t know who it was written by, it strays far from the synoptics, and it was the latest written (therefore giving time for fanciful tales of Jesus being YHWH to creep in).

Again, you assume that they are “pagan myths” despite their historical accuracy. Saying something is so doesn’t make it so.

I’ll give some illustrations.
The Creation account- God spoke the world into existence in six days. God made man out of dust and woman from a rib. They live in paradise until a talking serpent comes along and deceives the woman to eat the forbidden fruit. They are kicked out of the garden and two angels with swords guard the gate.

The Flood -*God destroys the whole world in a flood exceot for the people who stayed in a boat for 40 days. *

The Tower of Babel-Everyone gathers around to build a big tower so high it can reach heaven, but God says no and gives them languages.

Does this not sound like mythology to you?

How do you know they misunderstood? Aren’t you basing this on an underlying presupposition which begs the question? Invalid argument.

My point is that we don’t have to accept these Old Testament writings. Jesus was no ordnary Jew. He broke the Sabath; he taught new revelutionary teachings; he was even killed for not being Jewish enough. If Jesus (who we both agree was very wise) did not fully accept the Jewish faith, why should we? And if we don’t accept the faith, than why should we accept their religious litterature?

Doubt all you want, but don’t claim it as fact without presenting some evidence. Additionally, you have not stated what “bias” with which the authors of the NT wrote. Was it their desire to be persecuted by the Jews and Romans? Their desire to be forced underground into secret worship? Their desire to be thrown to the lions? What, praytell, was their “bias”?

The bias was thay the writer wanted to believe that Jesus was YHWH. It’s kind of like modern day conspiracy theorists. They want it to be true even though it’s not. In fact they want it so much, that they deceive themselves into believing it. This happened to some of the disciples. They wanted Jesus to be YHWH, so they convinced themselves of it. The author was blinded by his own desire.

Moses lived thousands of years before the historical Jesus. Please explain your anachronism.

All I mean, is that Jesus was the only man in that area during that time period who spoke of the fact that we are all God. Jesus was the only way men would find this out. He was the way. This is all he meant. (Of course this assumes he said it to begin with. See doubts on John’s gospel.)

 

[matthias]

Look. We all agree that God loves all men and women, but we also believe that God is all powerful. If these two things are true then God would find a way to save everyone. Even the worst sinner at the moment of their death could be given by God a significant and special grace in which they are repentant and saved.

If God has the power to save all men which his infinite power implies and God loves all men and wishes them all to be saved then they all must be saved.

 

[RyanL]

matthias:

Look. We all agree that God loves all men and women, but we also believe that God is all powerful. If these two things are true then God would find a way to save everyone…

Matthias,

Not bad. This is a variant argument of the following:
St. Thomas Aquinas:

It is objected (1) that God does not exist, because if one of two contradictory things is infinite, the other will be totally destroyed; that it is implied in the name God that there is a certain infinite goodness: if then God existed, no evil would be found. But evil is found in the world; therefore it is objected that God does not exist.

I don’t believe I can offer a better argument than he can.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[RyanL]

trumpet152:

Exactly my point! Christ claimed divinity. But he did not do so in the YHWH sense, but he knew that we are all God. And if we are all God, than a claim to divinity is perfectly acceptable.

You claim that Jesus only claimed divinity in a certain sense (i.e., the sense *you *mean it); I wonder why. As no evidence has been given that the historical Jesus either (1) taught this or (2) understood this to be the case, I have a hard time affording this hypothesis any credit.

For brievity’s sake, I’ll continue this in another format…

**[paraphrased]

Me**: John was written based on eye witness accounts.
You: It’s not reliable; it was written around the time of St. John’s death.
Me: No claim in John is contrary to any other Gospel; they are internally consistant. Furthermore, if this is your position you must also discount any modern account of the Great Depression, as that must likewise be completely historically inaccurate.
You: There was bias: they wanted Jesus to be YHWH.
Me: Oh really? John (the unreliable eye witness Gospel) accounts throngs of people walking away from your historical guru in Chapter 6, verse 66. Don’t you think that if he was trying to paint a rosy picture of an imagined God-Man he would have left this bit out? It’s not exactly flattering that God would be powerless to stop hoards of people from walking away from him. But you’re probably right. They wanted Jesus to be YHWH, so that they could be stoned by the Jews, persecute by the Romans, flayed alive, crucified upside down, hanged, dismembered, poisoned, drowned, and exiled. Good motive for bias. And as for your “seeping mythology” approach to the Gospels, I would like to know when this took place; was between the first and second generation of Christians who were being martyred for refusing to compromise their beliefs with paganism, or was it sometime after?

I’ll give some illustrations.
The Creation account-…The Flood -*…*The Tower of Babel-
Does this not sound like mythology to you?

You have been hanging around with too many Fundamentalists, and have been neglecting your Catholic studies. Please read this and get back to me. If you’re going to insist on a literalistic interpretation of the Bible, you certainly will come to some difficult things. You may also be interested in the fact that in Hebrew there isn’t really a word for ‘earth’. It’s land. As are the English words ‘county’, ‘province’, ‘continent’, and ‘country’. They’re all ‘land’. BTW, the creation account is perfectly compatable with the Catholic faith, as is evolution.

My point is that we don’t have to accept these Old Testament writings.

By what authority do you make this claim?

Jesus was no ordnary Jew.

You can say that again - he was God!

He broke the Sabath

Actually, He said He was Lord of the Sabbath

he taught new revelutionary teachings;

Not one dot or tittle shall pass away from the law. Yeah. Revolutionary.

he was even killed for not being Jewish enough.

Where did you come by this knowledge? Not the Bible…

If Jesus (who we both agree was very wise) did not fully accept the Jewish faith, why should we?

I have not conceded this point.

And if we don’t accept the faith, than why should we accept their religious litterature?

I don’t accept the Hindu or Pagan faiths, but I still accept their *historical *writings.

Jesus was the only man in that area during that time period who spoke of the fact that we are all God.

Where exactly did you read this?

Jesus was the only way men would find this out. He was the way. This is all he meant. (Of course this assumes he said it to begin with. See doubts on John’s gospel.)

Ahh…the old ‘argument in the alternative’ approach. This works well in law, but poorly in logical reasoning. You will need to pick a path and stick with it.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[trumpet152]

At this point I throw in the towel. I have been defeated. Very nice job, RyanL. If I had really believed what I argued, I would really be reconsidering my faith right now. Thankfully, I am already in agreement with you.

This Flipflop thread idea is excelent!

 

[RyanL]

lol! If only it were that easy!

Well done, and God Bless,
RyanL