Mike Huckabee: U.S. moving toward 'criminalization of Christianity'

[zz912]

You are jumping to conclusions ZZ: I never said anything was borrowed from anyone. What I said was that the overall themes were not unique and that others had similar elements in their traditions before we did. I also listed what those traditions were - virgin birth of incarnations of God, resurrections, and so forth. For instance, incarnations of God in human and even animal form were very prevalent in Hindu lore for many thousands of years and eventually became written accounts that Hindus consider scripture. Two in particular are Rama and Krishna. The cult of Krishna was on oral tradition for about 3,500 years before committed to writing insofar as anyone can account, and the Greeks made reference to it’s presence in India in documents that date a few hundred years before Christ. These are all things you can look up. I am far to busy to act as your intern.

So answer the question. Do you believe the Christian faith borrowed (which is the word you used, as noted above) from other religions? Or are any passing similarities you can find are just coincidences?

That is all well and fine ZZ, however I never said that reason doesn’t support what we believe. I said that history doesn’t support it, meaning it is not buttressed by any documented historical fact. You and I believe that Jesus was God manifest among humankind. History only says that he was crucified for trying to start a rebellion against Rome, and the only historical account of Him from his time was in fact just that. Nothing more. It was recorded by the Roman historian Josephus in passing when logging an event that occurred around the year 66 CE or so. There is no mention of Him other than that in any historical accounts of His time other than gospels and epistles, which are not considered historical records. They are sacred texts. Two different things.

Reason and history are two different things. Does reason support what we believe?

And I fail to see how the books of the New Testament are not also historical records. Explain that to me. Do any of them (besides Revelation) purport to give an allegorical account? Or are ALL of them giving an account of ACTUAL events as they happened? What differentiates the gospels and epistles from their recounting of events to other historical records? Any objective examination will show that they are very lucid, pragmatic, intelligent and measured recordings of events they emphatically say actually happened.

Nope - never attempted to separate faith from reason. That was you not paying attention to much of what I say.

Always blame it on the reader for misunderstanding your unclear and intentionally muddied words…

Again, you are putting words into my mouth. I never said they didn’t happen. I said there is no historical proof. I also never said anything was borrowed.

You did say borrowed.

Calm down ZZ.

I’m not upset.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

From ZZ:

A fair and clear reading of what you wrote is an interpretation that you were stating Christianity borrowed concepts or stories from other religions. I’ve asked you point blank several times, yes or no, if this is what you believe. You’ve avoided the question or coyly gave an evading answer. How many times does someone have to ask you directly for you to answer what your beliefs are?

Good Evening ZZ: I am a Catholic because that is how I was raised. Incense, ritual and traditional church music resonates with something in me, and I have a sense that it gives me a connection with something. That’s it.

With regard to any particulars as to what I believe, this is what I think: I think that the more you learn, the more you realize what you don’t know. And when you meet people who have all the answers, you have just encountered people who have a lot to learn.

Are you seriously arguing that Protestant denominations are NOT an offshoot of Catholicism? That was the point I made.

Firstly, the assertion I was responding to was that Protestant religions are a knock off of Catholicism, which is a dismissive and disrespectful term to use about any person or any religion. Secondly, you are asking to draw lines that can’t be drawn so clearly ZZ.

Everything is an offshoot of something. The first Christian congregation was an offshoot of Judaism. This was during the Apostolic Age. At that point, the Jerusalem Assembly was the center of the church, headed up by James. These people clearly thought of themselves as Jewish followers of the Messiah Jesus. They would have had no idea what you meant if you called them Christians, and yes, they would have been even more puzzled if you called them Catholic. As the Apostles fanned out, congregations were set up throughout the Hellenistic world, but Jerusalem remained the core of this new Jewish sect until after the destruction of the Second Temple. During the next stage of the history of Christianity, which historians call the Ante-Nicene Period, the church developed numerous congregations with many different gospel traditions, including some with divergent beliefs. These were offshoots of Apostolic ministries. The church doesn’t form into anything that looks like what we recognize today as a cohesive religion until after the Nicene Council in the 4th century. This is when the structures and traditions that we now know as Catholicism were codified. So you have offshoots of offshoots of offshoots and now we have more offshoots.

A cherry blossom is an offshoot of a branch that is an offshoot of a trunk that is an offshoot of roots that are an offshoot of a seed. And the seed in turn was an offshoot of an earlier blossom. Only simple minds can presume to say where one thing ends and another begins ZZ. The world is in fact that strange.

It’s certainly possible for God to use other false religions to point toward the true religion of Christianity.

So, your presumption is that God uses other people’s lives and other people’s beliefs as a means to serve your life and to serve what you believe? All the people who have lived and died since time immeasurable were put there simply to serve as a dull backdrop to the effulgence of your life? That is certainly possible ZZ, but I deal in probabilities. So while it’s possible, it’s not likely by a longshot.

All the best,
Gary

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

From ZZ:

So answer the question. Do you believe the Christian faith borrowed (which is the word you used, as noted above) from other religions? Or are any passing similarities you can find are just coincidences?

Good evening ZZ: As I have said before, I have no idea if any of it was borrowed or if it was coincidence. It doesn’t shake my faith either way.

Reason and history are two different things. Does reason support what we believe?

Recite the Creed and then think about anything you have ever seen in your life and then answer the question for yourself. I do not believe what I believe with regard to my faith based on reason. It’s more intuitive I think, at least for me.

And I fail to see how the books of the New Testament are not also historical records. Explain that to me. Do any of them (besides Revelation) purport to give an allegorical account? Or are ALL of them giving an account of ACTUAL events as they happened? What differentiates the gospels and epistles from their recounting of events to other historical records? Any objective examination will show that they are very lucid, pragmatic, intelligent and measured recordings of events they emphatically say actually happened.

They are not considered by serious historians to be historical documents, except where they exhibit what are called multiple attestations, meaning where two or more gospels say the exact same thing and match what is known about history. The problem with the New Testament is that we actually do know a lot about the period Jesus lived in. It is the most studied culture of all. And a lot of things in the New Testament reveal that the authors were not Jews from Palestine who knew Jesus or the history and culture of that time and place. I can give many examples that are well known by historians. For instance, the account of the arrest of Jesus. If the author of that account in the New Testament had been someone who lived at the time of Jesus and had been a Jew, he would have well known that the Sanhedrin did not under any circumstances meet during the Passover, and you will recall that Jesus was arrested after the Passover meal. A Jew from that time would also know that the Sanhedrin didn’t meet at night either, and the arrest of one of the 13 known Messiahs on the loose in Jerusalem at the time would not have been a special occasion anyway. And even if it had been, they still would not have met over it to interrogate anyone during Passover or at night.

We also have very detailed records of the behavior of Pilate. He executed thousands upon thousands of Jews, and would have never thought twice about executing Jesus. It wouldn’t have even required his approval, especially for someone accused of attempting
a revolt against the Roman occupation, which is the actual crime Jesus was executed for. The lamentation over killing Jesus on the part of Pilate is broadly accepted by historians to be the result of social and political pressures at the time this gospel account was written. It would never have happened.

For these and many other reasons, the gospels are not considered by historians to be historical records. They are certainly thought to be sacred writings of a religious tradition, and are honored as such.

Always blame it on the reader for misunderstanding your unclear and intentionally muddied words…

Sorry I can’t be more clear. I do my best.

I’m not upset.

Good!

All the best,
Gary

 

[ishii]

From ZZ:

Good Evening ZZ: I am a Catholic because that is how I was raised. Incense, ritual and traditional church music resonates with something in me, and I have a sense that it gives me a connection with something. That’s it.

Thank you Gary, for your candor. And I would add that your post above explains a great deal about your thinking as expressed in your posts on this thread. Sometimes its too much to ask to agree on things - but at the very least, we can be clear. As Dennis Prager says, clarity is better than agreement (better to be clear on what each other believes than come to some kind of agreement based on a false or vague idea of what each other believes).

If you had made that post from the beginning it probably would have saved a great deal of time. The Catholic Church has the fullness of truth, Gary. We should all work on better understanding that truth and what it means.

Ishii

 

[estesbob]

Thank you Gary, for your candor. And I would add that your post above explains a great deal about your thinking as expressed in your posts on this thread. Sometimes its too much to ask to agree on things - but at the very least, we can be clear. As Dennis Prager says, clarity is better than agreement (better to be clear on what each other believes than come to some kind of agreement based on a false or vague idea of what each other believes).

If you had made that post from the beginning it probably would have saved a great deal of time. The Catholic Church has the fullness of truth, Gary. We should all work on better understanding that truth and what it means.

Ishii

It is, however, sad to see the fullness of truth reduced to incense, ritual & music .

 

[qui_est_ce]

It is, however, sad to see the fullness of truth reduced to incense, ritual & music .

I don’t think Gary is reducing the fullness of truth to incense, ritual, and music. These things lead us to God. They are a means of entering into the sacredness of the Truth that is God. It is in the mass as revealed in the Book of Revelation.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

It is, however, sad to see the fullness of truth reduced to incense, ritual & music .

Good Afternoon Estesbob: Nothing to fret here. It is my opinion based on experience that we aren’t going to know God through theology, theory, dogma or thought. It is something far deeper than that and for the most part defies human intellect. And if music, incense and tradition make that connection, it is the experience that matters. An encounter with God, even if beyond verbal syntax is far more valuable than any truth that can be expressed, and these encounters are ours to be had, but to have them you pretty much have to shut all that mental noise down anyway. For instance, all the things we have said to each other on this thread (including all the things I have said) are noise. To see God and experience God, we have to shut al that noise down. God doesn’t care about whether you have the right dogma or the right idea. Because it’s noise. That is why I go with the music and the incense and the ritual. For me it shuts down the noise and acts as a conduit for that encounter with something that cannot be sealed with an epoxy of linguistic context.

All the best
Gary

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

I don’t think Gary is reducing the fullness of truth to incense, ritual, and music. These things lead us to God. They are a means of entering into the sacredness of the Truth that is God. It is in the mass as revealed in the Book of Revelation.

Absolutely! Thank you Qui Est CE!

 

[Robert_Bay]

MODERATOR NOTICE

This thread is wandering, please return to the topic of the original post

 

[ishii]

It is, however, sad to see the fullness of truth reduced to incense, ritual & music .

I think it is Christianity / Catholicism in action that scares the left and makes it want to limit its influence in America. It is the kind of Christianity which causes people to take a stand against all injustices - including those perpetrated by the government. The left has little to fear of a Christianity that is merely superficial, and whose members view the world through the relativistic lens - just like the agnostics and atheists. It has little to fear from Christians whose views are solidly leftist. I suppose for that matter, it has little to fear from Christians who are basically “Sunday only” Christians, or lukewarm Christians.

Ishii

 

[estesbob]

One thing to watch how the left is increasingly declining to use the term freedom of religion and prefers to use freedom of worship instead . Freedom of worship implies that it’s okay to follow your silly little superstitions within the walls of your church and the walls of your home but you better leave them there

 

[BobCatholic]

Cardinal George is right.

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Read more: ncregister.com/blog/tim-drake/the-myth-and-the-reality-of-ill-die-in-my-bed/#ixzz3aPAb8QOc

 

[Darryl1958]

There was one rather Protestant commentator on Christian history that noted how there were numerous times in history where the attempts were made to erase the religion. I am not sure which times he was talking about, but his conclusion was essentially correct.

Every attempt to erase Christianity will fail, because Christianity is true.

Whatever is true is essential, and after everything crumbles, all that remains is the truth.

Building a society on false claims is like building a dam with substandard concrete, or a bridge with steel beams that were not designed to carry the weight. These kinds of things are just not optional, and neither is the truth.

We can pretend that abortion is not the murder of innocent human beings, but that does not make it so. And in what world does it make sense that a society that kills a quarter to a third of each generation will ever be able to sustain itself?

We can pretend that marriage is about personal fulfillment, but that does not make it so.
And in what world does it make sense to raise the next generation where mother and fathers are optional?

We can pretend that our sexuality and procreation are not connected, but the truth is that they are integrally related, and a society that ignores that is as doomed as it would be if it ignored the other necessary biological functions of alimentation and excretion of waste material.

And when the dams crumble and the bridges collapse, the blueprint that is called Christianity remains, same as it ever was, in the unchanging, unchangeable teachings of the Catholic Church. The truth has been revealed, the veil has been rent in two.Christ has revealed himself to us, and his memory has been permanently imprinted on our hearts and souls and minds.

 

[zz912]

Good Evening ZZ: I am a Catholic because that is how I was raised. Incense, ritual and traditional church music resonates with something in me, and I have a sense that it gives me a connection with something. That’s it.

That’s it?!?! I hope you phrased that wrong, as it comes across as inch-deep feelings and emotions, when our faith also contains truth, reality, reason, logic and evidence.

Firstly, the assertion I was responding to was that Protestant religions are a knock off of Catholicism, which is a dismissive and disrespectful term to use about any person or any religion. Secondly, you are asking to draw lines that can’t be drawn so clearly ZZ.

Everything is an offshoot of something. The first Christian congregation was an offshoot of Judaism. This was during the Apostolic Age. At that point, the Jerusalem Assembly was the center of the church, headed up by James. These people clearly thought of themselves as Jewish followers of the Messiah Jesus. They would have had no idea what you meant if you called them Christians, and yes, they would have been even more puzzled if you called them Catholic. As the Apostles fanned out, congregations were set up throughout the Hellenistic world, but Jerusalem remained the core of this new Jewish sect until after the destruction of the Second Temple. During the next stage of the history of Christianity, which historians call the Ante-Nicene Period, the church developed numerous congregations with many different gospel traditions, including some with divergent beliefs. These were offshoots of Apostolic ministries. The church doesn’t form into anything that looks like what we recognize today as a cohesive religion until after the Nicene Council in the 4th century. This is when the structures and traditions that we now know as Catholicism were codified. So you have offshoots of offshoots of offshoots and now we have more offshoots.

There were varying heresies in the early Church, as there always is. And those heresies were met and opposed by the Church. The Church came in and declared what was the faith and what was not. And it’s simply false to say that the Church and faith weren’t cohesive until the 4th century.

A cherry blossom is an offshoot of a branch that is an offshoot of a trunk that is an offshoot of roots that are an offshoot of a seed. And the seed in turn was an offshoot of an earlier blossom. Only simple minds can presume to say where one thing ends and another begins ZZ. The world is in fact that strange.

Funny, but most people have no problem recognizing that the Anglican faith was created by the decisive action King Henry VIII took at a very specific moment in time and severed ties with Rome and created his own church/religion. That is when the Christian faith for him and the country ended and a new one began.

So, your presumption is that God uses other people’s lives and other people’s beliefs as a means to serve your life and to serve what you believe? All the people who have lived and died since time immeasurable were put there simply to serve as a dull backdrop to the effulgence of your life? That is certainly possible ZZ, but I deal in probabilities. So while it’s possible, it’s not likely by a longshot.

You totally missed my point and the basic premise of the Church teaching I was relating.

 

[zz912]

They are not considered by serious historians to be historical documents, except where they exhibit what are called multiple attestations, meaning where two or more gospels say the exact same thing and match what is known about history. The problem with the New Testament is that we actually do know a lot about the period Jesus lived in. It is the most studied culture of all. And a lot of things in the New Testament reveal that the authors were not Jews from Palestine who knew Jesus or the history and culture of that time and place. I can give many examples that are well known by historians. For instance, the account of the arrest of Jesus. If the author of that account in the New Testament had been someone who lived at the time of Jesus and had been a Jew, he would have well known that the Sanhedrin did not under any circumstances meet during the Passover, and you will recall that Jesus was arrested after the Passover meal. A Jew from that time would also know that the Sanhedrin didn’t meet at night either, and the arrest of one of the 13 known Messiahs on the loose in Jerusalem at the time would not have been a special occasion anyway. And even if it had been, they still would not have met over it to interrogate anyone during Passover or at night.

We also have very detailed records of the behavior of Pilate. He executed thousands upon thousands of Jews, and would have never thought twice about executing Jesus. It wouldn’t have even required his approval, especially for someone accused of attempting
a revolt against the Roman occupation, which is the actual crime Jesus was executed for. The lamentation over killing Jesus on the part of Pilate is broadly accepted by historians to be the result of social and political pressures at the time this gospel account was written. It would never have happened.

For these and many other reasons, the gospels are not considered by historians to be historical records. They are certainly thought to be sacred writings of a religious tradition, and are honored as such.

So the Gospels are obviously fakes because they note something unusual, and the reason they’re fakes is that they note something that didn’t normally happen. Seems like a convenient way to try and dismiss the gospels without any evidence to support discrediting them.

And Pilate’s portrayal makes sense in the gospel accounts, because Jesus didn’t have an army, and did call for violent insurrection or rebellion. In fact I would understand Pilate’s reasoning that he would prefer more leaders like Jesus who weren’t calling for insurrection. If in his shoes, I’d prefer a Jewish leader like Jesus over the other rebellious leaders Pilate was dealing with.

When do you believe the Gospels were written? And when were these changes to the stories made?