JCC Bible universities

Hey Lostonhoth... I already graduated Bible School I don't need your help interpreting the bible.... Thanks though!

 

Still ignoring the overwhelming evidence that the sun is not the center of the universe, eh? Still ignoring the overwhelming evidence for the Big Bang and evolution? Whatever floats your boat, I guess. I'd rather live in a reality-based world than a fairy tale-based one.

 

Yeah but this is an example of real scholarship. You should check it out. This guy went to bible school too.

 

MasterFlanders do you end every conversatioj telling people that you are going to listen to a crappy star wars audiobook?

 

MasterFlanders do you end every conversatioj telling people that you are going to listen to a crappy star wars audiobook?

 

I'm going to play Battle for Naboo on my Nintendo 64 while listening to Spectre of the Past on tape!

 

Um, I'm sorry to be doing this, but you guys would have agreed with MasterSanders point had anyone else made it.

That is, he's arguing that what the Vatican has done over the years, as a political entity, is not representative of theological Christianity.

That is, all the sword-point conversions, the money, the politics, the wars... it was about power, not about scripture. The acts don't align with the bearded hippie socialist of the bible.

It's actually a valid point and I think you missed it or were being a bit unfair there.

 

I don't see how those criticisms of Catholicism can't apply to Protestantism.

 

If you could explain what "bible school" means, Ender Sai would greatly appreciate it.

 

MasterSanders does raise a good point about how harmful the Catholic church is, but he's not seeing the big picture. All religions are harmful in their own ways, whether by violence, by greed, by bigotry or by hatred. But the biggest and most lasting harm done by religions is the forced indoctrination of youngsters before they have attained the age of reason.

Religion's motto should be "Catch 'em while they're young and they'll be hooked for life!"

 

It is:

Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

 

Well, everyone gets indoctrinated. "The Catholic Church is 100% right!" is just as much of an indoctrination as "Always question those in authority and form your own opinions about things!"

We can argue about a particular thing with which we indoctrinate children being good or bad, but really, your children are going to end up making their own decisions anyway, regardless of what you want. And you're going to teach them what you think is right and wrong anyway. It's as much indoctrination to raise a child with a religion as much to raise one with a lack of one.

 

I thought the Old Testament doesn't count.

 

Just the parts about not eating bacon.

 

"Form your own opinions" is sorta exactly what indoctrination isn't. Similarly, I don't see how you think there's indoctrination raising a child without a religion.

 

MasterSanders (or anyone else who thinks evolution is "just a theory"). This video should help you with your misunderstanding of evolution and scientific principles in general.

 

Anyone who uses the phrase "just a theory" probably doesn't know what "theory" means, and is most likely confusing it with "hypothesis".

 

Understandable that you didn't want to read the big stupid block of text, but he does try to speak to this issue. His main hang-up seems to the whole sola scriptura division, which pretty appropriately dates back to the time of the Reformation itself.

From what I gather, he does seem to concede that all Christian denominations (and most all groups in human history, period) have committed some significant abuses. But in designating a series of texts as the seat of their legitimacy, Protestant churches can use the distinction Ender just described as a valid defense of the legitimacy of their teachings. Whatever failings exist presently or historically can be called the failings of practitioners. By contrast, because the Catholic Church has ultimately designated itself (as an organizational infrastructure) as the ultimate seat of authority/legitimacy, the organization's failings much more logically stain their entire enterprise. By analogy, consider that it's like someone trying to argue that Supreme Court made an unconstitutional ruling. Mind you not, a wrong decision, or one that was intellectually dishonest. One that was literally illegal. Because the Constitution designates the Supreme Court as its final interpreter, that argument becomes very difficult to sustain.

I'm sure you're aware of the serious limitations of this argument. Namely, as both communists and libertarians seem unwilling to admit, something that can somehow never be said to have been practiced in its "pure form" at any time is ultimately probably not terribly useful, since we all live with the consequences of what actually happens, not their Platonic ideal of it. On the other hand, there's a difference between saying an organization determines legitimacy and saying that everything an organization has ever done is legitimate. But his argument does still have a point, nonetheless.

 

Jello: Yeah, I think that's a perfectly valid objection, and I agree. But the discussion didn't really start off as an exploration of responsibility for the Crusades or something. It's about the tension between self-identification and a group's ability to internally police itself. He, as a Christian, thinks Catholics are too intellectually/theologically distinct to be classified as co-religionists. He doesn't want to be associated with them, and they don't mind being associated with him. The rest of the discussion has just been giving the rationale behind all this. It's not necessarily a view that I take, and it certainly isn't an inclusive one, but nothing says you have to be. He has plenty of clear grounds for making the distinction he wants to make.

It's like debating whether libertarians or neo-cons or Christian conservatives represent the "true" Republican Party, or whether liberals have any place in it. Most people will find it silly to try and play up the divisions and pretend they are entirely separate. But there are clearly delineated differences in each school of thought.

What sort of insane statement is this? No well-meaning non-religious person has ever done a bad thing? Ever?

 

Since the Protestant/Catholic schism is the general direction this thread has taken, I have a question for the Protestants in this thread (and I ask this entirely in the good spirits of honest intellectual inquiry, not in the insufferable Dawkinsian "Neener, neener, gotcha!" vein)

Back when I was an evangelical Protestant, even though I wasn't too familiar with central Mormon doctrines, one of the things that made the religion so "obviously" false to me was the fact that it wasn't even founded until the 19th century; Why would God wait over eighteen hundred years to reveal additional foundational creeds and strictures? I, myself, however, was laboring under the delusion that the form of Christianity I was practicing had existed more or less entirely unchanged since the days of Christ. While I even now, as a non-believer, absolutely believe that the central Protestant sola doctrines are more ideologically concordant with the theology espoused in the Gospels and Epistles, it is a historical fact that Protestant theology wasn't codified as a significant movement until the 17th century, and even now doesn't denote a movement of uniform theological content, but is largely an umbrella term for various movements that peeled away from the Catholic church. If the Catholic and Orthodox churches are heretical institutions ,why did God allow it to be the only game in town for so long? This is one of the central conflicts that eventually led to my leaving Christianity.

 

Isn't time supposed to not be a thing when it comes to God?

 

God is Doctor Who obviously.