America Is Not A Christian Country

Dutch Uncle said:
Even then I'd expect they'd mention and then dispute it. Their graduates need to be able to counter any arguments against their beliefs.

Anyone who can't must have gotten their degree off the Internet like this:

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I see no conflict between learning the consensus historical scholarship of the New Testament and also maintaining a religious faith, if that is what one chooses.
 
Cypress said:
I am interested in study of world religions.

I believe one cannot understand history, philosophy, culture, the human condition without having a good working knowlege of world faith traditions.

Just my two cents.
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That's perfectly fine. Just not for me, I guess.
 
BidenPresident said:
Not anger. Shows how imperceptive you are. Scared everyone won't convert? God won't give you a better chair in heaven?
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I must be the world's worst proselytizer, but you are perfectly free to stop reading my posts if they strike you as strident, bible thumping proselytizing
 
Cypress said:
I must be the world's worst proselytizer, but you are perfectly free to stop reading my posts if they strike you as strident, bible thumping proselytizing
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I find it fascinating that you crawl up into fetal position at the first sign of criticism of your beliefs. Like I said, you're an authoritarian.
 
Cypress said:
1) While Church fathers quoted the Gospels, nobody identified the authors as Mark, Mathew, Luke, John until the middle of the 2nd century - this indicates that Christians retroactively attributed authorship to the Gospels to the apostles and companions of the apostles.
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not true at all.......the church in the middle of the 2nd century attributed the gospels to their authors because EVERYONE identified them as the authors......doubts were retroactively raised by atheists in the 20th century.....
 
Cypress said:
2) Now you are backtracking and saying a scribe wrote the Gospel of John, not John himself.
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please, don't be an idiot.....if you get a letter from the president of a Fortune 500 company do you quibble about whether the letter is actually from his secretary?.....scribes are an historical given....
 
Cypress said:
4) John would have had to been an adult when Jesus was executed around 30 AD. That would have made John around 80 to 90 years old when the Gospel of John was written at the end of the 1st century. That seems highly unlikely. The average peasant in the Roman Empire rarely lived past their 40s.
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complete fiction on your part......what was an "adult" in the first century......it was not unusual for 16 year olds to be married....

Julius Caesar who lived a hundred fifty years before that died at 55 by assassination.......
 
Cypress said:
I see no conflict between learning the consensus historical scholarship of the New Testament and also maintaining a religious faith, if that is what one chooses.
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Agreed.

OTOH one key aspect of Evangelicals and Baptists is proselytizing. It's stupid to proselytize if one doesn't know WTF they are talking about. All it does is make them look like mindless, ignorant fanatics.

Better, IMO, to learn as much about one's faith, all variations and other faiths as possible. At least if they're going to earn a BA much less a Masters degree.

It's things like this that prove PmP is a liar and a fraud.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
please, don't be an idiot.....if you get a letter from the president of a Fortune 500 company do you quibble about whether the letter is actually from his secretary?.....scribes are an historical given....
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You can believe the Gospels were written or dictated by the Apostles if you want.

I generally find that congealed and inflexible faith is impervious to data and evidence.

Personally, the amateur historian in me thinks it would be cool if Mark was really the first hand account of Peter and John was actually his first hand account. Eye witness accounts of Jesus would be the historical scoop of the millennium.

But integrity and honesty obliges me to accept the overwhelming evidence of historical scholarship: the NT Gospels were written anonymously by highly educated Greek speakers four decades after Jesus' execution, and record the oral traditions about his life which were in circulation at the time.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Agreed.

OTOH one key aspect of Evangelicals and Baptists is proselytizing. It's stupid to proselytize if one doesn't know WTF they are talking about. All it does is make them look like mindless, ignorant fanatics.

Better, IMO, to learn as much about one's faith, all variations and other faiths as possible. At least if they're going to earn a BA much less a Masters degree.

It's things like this that prove PmP is a liar and a fraud.
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Good point on proselytizing.

My take on it is that the fundamentalist Protestant sects have always placed great weight on biblical literalism and biblical inerrancy.

For that reason, they have never been good at critical Biblical scholarship.

I have found that some of the Catholic orders like the Benedictine monks and the Jesuits are generally better at biblical scholarship because they are not as hung up on biblical inerrancy.

Biblical historical scholars are obviously going to approach the NT with an eye for critical historical analysis, which is really good too.
 
Cypress said:
Good point on proselytizing.

My take on it is that the fundamentalist Protestant sects have always placed great weight on biblical literalism and biblical inerrancy.

For that reason, they have never been good at critical Biblical scholarship.

I have found that some of the Catholic orders like the Benedictine monks and the Jesuits are generally better at biblical scholarship because they are not as hung up on biblical inerrancy.

Biblical historical scholars are obviously going to approach the NT with an eye for critical historical analysis, which is really good too.
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While that's true about "fundamentalist Protestant sects", I'd love to see a review of historical assholes in the Holy Roman Empire who were neither Holy, Roman or an Empire. All were assholes of the Vatican.

IMHO, a true holy man sees religion as a path, not a goal. The goal is spiritual enlightenment. How best to achieve spiritual enlightenment, being "One with God", is debatable.
 
I created this thread cause someone claimed that America is a racist country and Tim Scott said it isn't. America might have been a racist and a sexist country once, but it isn't anymore.

Certain Evangelicals have been pushing that America was founded as a Christian nation. They offered various arguments.

I cite this as an example: http://www.internationalcopsforchrist.com/proof-that-america-was-founded-as-a-christian-nation/#:~:text=America%20was%20founded%20on%20three%20documents%3A%20The%20Declaration,to%20anyone%20who%20does%20not%20have%20an%20agenda.
 
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