MDB Bible Study

[_Ceeboo]

I've been chopped liver twice in this thread.

Considering the thread is 22 pages long, being called chopped liver only twice is actually pretty impressive. :)

[_Res Ipsa]

Hey Ceebs. Good stuff. I'm going to have to take it a topic at a time.

None of the verses you quote specifically address whether anything other than faith is required to get to heaven. So, it certainly is true that if the woman didn't have faith, she would die in her sins. But that doesn't necessarily mean that faith is sufficient, all by its lonesome, to get to heaven. Specifically, none of the quotes address the question of future sin.

Until the reformation, Christians were Catholics, and Catholics did not, and still do not, subscribe to "faith alone." Faith is sufficient to place on in a state of grace. Committing a "moral sin" as opposed to a "venial sin" takes one out of the state of grace. If one dies out of a state of grace, one goes to hell. However, going to confessional permits the state of grace to be restored. So, getting to heaven takes either 1) don't commit a mortal sin (and mortal sins can be much less serious than the label implies) or 2) Confess and repent through the ritual of the confessional.

Regardless of the labels we use, salvation or justification or anything else, what I'm talking about is getting to heaven. If "salvation" just means forgiveness of sins, then I won't use it as a substitute for "getting to heaven."

[_Res Ipsa]

I've been chopped liver twice in this thread. Did you read the thread or did you just come in at the end?

I wasn't commenting on the thread. I was saying that I don't think you're chopped liver.

[_Jersey Girl]

I've been chopped liver twice in this thread.

Considering the thread is 22 pages long, being called chopped liver only twice is actually pretty impressive. :)

Least nobody called me a clown.

[_Ceeboo]

Hey Ceebs. Good stuff. I'm going to have to take it a topic at a time.

No worries - As I said, I appreciate you engaging and I also appreciate your contributions.

Until the reformation, Christians were Catholics, and Catholics did not, and still do not, subscribe to "faith alone." Faith is sufficient to place on in a state of grace. Committing a "moral sin" as opposed to a "venial sin" takes one out of the state of grace. If one dies out of a state of grace, one goes to hell. However, going to confessional permits the state of grace to be restored. So, getting to heaven takes either 1) don't commit a mortal sin (and mortal sins can be much less serious than the label implies) or 2) Confess and repent through the ritual of the confessional.

Yeah, this would take another 32 page thread. In short (if we shelve the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church and the Coptic Catholic Church) we are left with the Roman Catholic Church (Catholic meaning universal) The RC Church began adding many man mad things to Christianity (moving away from biblical Christianity) starting in the 300's and have continued adding/changing ever since (Popes, vestments, celibate priests, nuns - then over time, added things like purgatory, indulgences, Immaculate conception, delivering grace in chunks to their fold, etc)

Regardless of the labels we use, salvation or justification or anything else, what I'm talking about is getting to heaven. If "salvation" just means forgiveness of sins, then I won't use it as a substitute for "getting to heaven."

Biblically speaking - Salvation, without exception, means living with God for eternity.

Thanks again - Good night! :)

[_Ceeboo]

Least nobody called me a clown.

[_Jersey Girl]

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[_Res Ipsa]

Yeah, this would take another 32 page thread. In short (if we shelve the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church and the Coptic Catholic Church) we are left with the Roman Catholic Church (Catholic meaning universal) The RC Church began adding many man mad things to Christianity (moving away from biblical Christianity) starting in the 300's and have continued adding/changing ever since (Popes, vestments, celibate priests, nuns - then over time, added things like purgatory, indulgences, Immaculate conception, delivering grace in chunks to their fold, etc)

This is where our different starting places come into play. I understand your perspective, since it used to be mine. I also believed that true Christianity existed right after the resurrection and was corrupted over time, eventually becoming the Catholic church. So I completely get that perspective.

But, as a non-believer, everything is "man made things," including Christianity. For me, the interesting question is how all of those man-made things happened over the course of a couple thousand years to result in the American religious landscape we see today. What I see in the various documents we have (or that were described or quoted by other documents we have) in the period after Jesus's life, is a struggle among his followers to understand what happened and what it meant. The New Testament is dominated by one man's interpretation. But his letters make it clear that his was not the only interpretation, and there was a battle going on in terms of construction a theology centered on Jesus. And that man never saw Jesus during his lifetime, didn't hear whatever it was that Jesus said while alive, and was preaching his version of the gospel before the canonical gospels were written. But we have evidence of other voices and other gospels, which were culled and suppressed as other men decided which were canon and which were heresy.

I don't see a "correct" version of a Christ-centered theology that existed at the time of, or soon after, his death. I see the development of a theology over hundreds of years, evaluating and discarding different interpretations of events, and finally coalescing in a form that we see in the first council of Nicea. As I've been saying, developed over time.

I'm not trying to persuade you that my view is right. But our conversation leads me to think you don't actually understand what my view is. If you approach the New Testament as a believing Christian, you can certainly use the canonized scripture to support your flavor of Christianity. But if you approach it as a book, looking at what it says, who wrote it, when was it written, why was it written, and how does it fit in with everything else we know about the context, the New Testament looks very different.

[_Res Ipsa]

Here's another, in no particular order:

Understood. My hope is to not argue - rather, my hope is to simply suggest the following: If Christianity is not true, it's completely meaningless (Considering who Jesus claimed he was (God)) I reject the idea that Jesus was merely a good teacher or a decent man or a pleasant fellow who had good ideas. (I personally find these things to be preposterous - Given the claims made) - And if Jesus is who he claimed to be (God entering his very creation) then I can't think of anything that could be more important.

As I see it, Christianity has very significant meaning even if there is no God, or Jesus is not God. I think that saying Christianity is either true or meaningless is the same kind of false dilemma you see with LDS statements about Joseph Smith (either a prophet or a fraud). You are focussed on the importance of Christianity being true because Christianity is your religion. When I look around, I see all kinds of different religions with all kinds of supernatural claims that I don't believe are true.

But I think they still have meaning. They are part of what seems to be a universal struggle to try and figure out what it means to be a human, where humans fit in with the rest of the universe, how one should treat other humans, how to understand all the good and bad things that happen to humans, and what does death mean to humans? Folks in different times and locations have come up with a huge range of different answers to those questions. To claim that the one you believe must be true and all the others meaningless is what is "preposterous" to me. The Sermon on the Mount is a marvelous discourse, regardless of who Jesus was or whether there was a Jesus at all. The story of the Demon Mara coming to the Buddha's house has had a huge impact on my life -- and don't care at all whether there was an actual Bhudda or a Mara or a visit between the two. I think you are really selling your Jesus short if you insist that he be God or nothing.

[_Res Ipsa]

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