Do most Christians even understand their own religion?

Frank Apisa said:
I don't do that...and while I agree that we could...my opinion is that we SHOULD NOT DO IT INDIVIDUALLY.

We should do it collectively.

The reason for an ethical/moral code is to make civilization possible...to make community possible.

Anything about ethics or morals that goes outside that...is something that probably should be done away with.
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I agree.

There has to be an institutional framework, a scaffolding, to hang our collective moral vision on.

Otherwise, Donald Trump's morality is just as valid as a Franciscan monk's.

Historically, it was a religious moral vision. To some extent, that cultural heritage is still with us. These days, laws and legislation express a moral vision, to some extent. Certainly, the 1948 UN convention on human rights was an expression of a type of natural law.

The problem with legislation, is that it cannot really make charity, humility, compassion, etc. binding.
 
Cypress said:
I agree.

There has to be an institutional framework, a scaffolding, to hang our collective moral vision on.

Otherwise, Donald Trump's morality is just as valid as a Franciscan monk's.

Historically, it was a religious moral vision. To some extent, that cultural heritage is still with us. These days, laws and legislation express a moral vision, to some extent. Certainly, the 1948 UN convention on human rights was an expression of a type of natural law.

The problem with legislation, is that it cannot really make charity, humility, compassion, etc. binding.
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Morality comes from within! No way to legislate morals
 
BidenPresident said:
And you give your opinions about religion. I will take Aristotle.
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Aristotle's greatest legacy to western civilization was his systems of logic and reason. Which is why he was so influential with the Islamic and Christian scholars of the High Middle Ages.

As for Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, it is an important treatise. But there are at most three people on this board who have even heard about it, and only about ten thousand people in all of North America who have read the entire thing.

The context I was writing about spoke to systems of metaphysical moral vision which are widely held by a significant community of people, and are considered binding, non-negeotiable, and immutable.
 
Cypress said:
Catholics are every bit as Christian as Evangelical Protestants.

Evangelicals are a small minority of world Christianity and do not get to speak for the faith as a whole.

The authors of the New Testament were not the apostles. They were anonymous, educated Greek-speakers writing four to six decades after Jesus was executed.

The NT was not written in English, a language which did not exist in the first century. Translating two thousand year old archaic Greek into modern vernacular English involves subjective interpretation of original meaning and intent.

We do not know exactly what was in the original New Testament. What we have are surviving hand written copies from the Middle Ages, a thousand years later than the original Gospels. We can assume these copies are fairly accurate representations of the original Greek Gospels, but there have almost certainly been changes and additions over the centuries

Jesus did not found Christianity, Paul did.

The Old Testament, Tanakh, is Jewish scripture. Torah is Jewish law. Paul's ministry made explicitly clear that gentiles are not necessarily required to conform to the Jewish law.

Church patristic fathers and Christian theologians of late antiquity generally thought it was preposterous and stupid to read Genesis and the rest of Torah literally. They considered correct biblical reading to utilize allegory and metaphor.

Revelations was a first century composition which referenced the Roman Empire, written for people of that era. It was not forecasting a future world government led by China or European Union.

I am pretty sure Jesus never said anything explicitly about abortion or gays.


Just my two cents.
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The Christian world is full conflicting views and ideologies, its hard to call many sects the same religion except in name.

If you read the New Testament is is in great conflict with the Old Testament, but as a follower of the teachings of Jesus, I choose the teachings of Jesus over the old ways.

Forgive the neighbor instead of an eye for an eye. Look at Matthew 5 for much guidance on how Jesus changed things.

Jesus was very much anti-Church in the traditional sense, he never attended one, his "Church" was a group of apostles and a prostitute.
 
Jarod said:
The Christian world is full conflicting views and ideologies, its hard to call many sects the same religion except in name.

If you read the New Testament is is in great conflict with the Old Testament, but as a follower of the teachings of Jesus, I choose the teachings of Jesus over the old ways.

Forgive the neighbor instead of an eye for an eye. Look at Matthew 5 for much guidance on how Jesus changed things.
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Okay, I looked at Matthew to see how much Jesus changed things.

Here's a passage I found:


"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come, not to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Of this much I assure you: UNTIL HEAVEN AND EARTH PASS AWAY, NOT THE SMALLEST LETTER OF THE LAW, NOT THE SMALLEST PART OF A LETTER, SHALL BE DONE AWAY WITH UNTIL IT ALL COME TRUE."

Matthew 5: 17ff

Sounds to me as though Jesus was saying he was not here to change ANYTHING about the Old Testament "law" which is found primarily in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

If one really wants to find about changing the Old Testament, mostly you should study Paul's letters to the Galatians...and a few of the others.

Of course, then you would have to take Paul's word over that of Jesus.
 
Cypress said:
I think Karen Armstrong's thesis was that the Axial Age began on the heels of a particularly violent and chaotic period of human History.

There was a late Bronze Age collapse of civilization in the Eastern Mediterranean. The catastrophic Greek Dark ages were just ending. The Kingdom of Israel had been overrun by Babylonians. . China was in the middle of the chaotic Spring and Autumn period, and on the cusp of the Warring States period.
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For everything there is a season,
A time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.

The present recorded history of mankind, besides being written in blood, is that it's often two steps forward and one step back. The collapse of civilizations almost always yielded a greater one.
 
Frank Apisa said:
Okay, I looked at Matthew to see how much Jesus changed things.

Here's a passage I found:


"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come, not to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Of this much I assure you: UNTIL HEAVEN AND EARTH PASS AWAY, NOT THE SMALLEST LETTER OF THE LAW, NOT THE SMALLEST PART OF A LETTER, SHALL BE DONE AWAY WITH UNTIL IT ALL COME TRUE."

Matthew 5: 17ff

Sounds to me as though Jesus was saying he was not here to change ANYTHING about the Old Testament "law" which is found primarily in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

If one really wants to find about changing the Old Testament, mostly you should study Paul's letters to the Galatians...and a few of the others.

Of course, then you would have to take Paul's word over that of Jesus.
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I intemperate that differently epically considering how he continues to give conflicting new rules. So, you believe we should turn the cheek?

Do you treat the meek as if they are blessed? Does the old testament teach that?

Do you believe in being merciful? should they been shown mercy?

Are peacemakers true children of God? Or are those who stormed the Capital?

Are those you persecuted righteous?
 
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court."

Does Trump do that? Do you celebrate it when Trump fights to the end in Court?
 
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Yet, you celebrate a leader how proclames, "Grab em by the pussy."
 
“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’[f] 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."


Ya, I know a lot of "Christians" who follow this one, dear leader was divorced three times.
 
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