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My Christian Beliefs[W:205]

Re: My Christian Beliefs

Well, number one, these are not official Church Of England answers, it's just me talking. I have taken some cues from other denominations, and like you I struggled with these questions. Along with some of the things I have already said, and my overview of the entire Bible I have come to these conclusions.

And with that I need to be on my way for now.
Thanks for taking the time.
 
Re: My Christian Beliefs

It is you who has nothing. Simon Greenleaf, writing 140 years ago, despite his legal training, shows himself to be just another apologist. A believer trying to erase the contradictions so evident in the passages describing the so-called resurrection. The only way he can do this is by using "premises" and assumptions, nevermind that "great earthquake" for which there is no record.

In the second paragraph under the heading The Time, we can read "To harmonize this apparent discrepancy, we may premise". Sure, you can 'premise' anything you wish in an attempt to harmonize the stories.

Second paragraph under the heading The Number of the Women, we see another assumption, one which has zero support outside of the Gospel. John, in narrating circumstances with which he was personally connected, sees fit to mention only Mary Magdalene, it does not at all follow that others were not present. Ooop, I erred, that's two assumptions - the author of the Gospel of John being "personally connected" and that the author didn't need to name any other person present before the tomb.

When Greenleaf has no explanation for an obvious contradiction, he just brushes it away. The Vision of Angels in the Sepulchre. Of this John says nothing. Matthew and Mark speak of one angel; Luke of two. Mark says he was sitting; Luke speaks of them as standing. This difference in respect to numbers is parallel to the case of the women, which we have just considered; and requires therefore no further illustration. "Yep, can't illustrate it so it ain't there."

Mr Greenleaf makes a valiant effort to find harmonization between the four accounts but there are just too many suppositions and assumptions, owing of course to the ever so small fact that Greenleaf was a True Believer. As we see with those of similar faith in these forums, Greenleaf could twist and squirm and create a whole new story using some very nice words, all in an attempt to justify what he knew was true before he even started his defence. Contradictions not allowed.

Simon Greenleaf is seen as one of the leading legal scholars of the 19th Century, author/editor of A Treatise on the Law of Evidence and a professor of law at Harvard University.

Like I told dox - the number of angels at the Sepulchre can change, depending on how many seconds or minutes, etc., pass. I guess that never crossed your mind, did it, Somerville???

So spare me your sophomoric analysis.

Christ is Risen in all four Gospels and various epistles. So when they do agree unanimously, you don't believe it anyway, which says a lot about your bias.

So nice try.
 
Re: My Christian Beliefs

Okay, I understand vincible ignorance as something that can be overcome if one puts effort into it (the overcoming), invincible OTH as something that can't be helped (overcome).

Being devoid of faith as I am, maybe I'm trying to approach the conundrum I originally outlined too much from the point of logic, despite being fully aware of the fact that faith does't require logic in order to exist or manifest itself.

Nevertheless my queries as such are not designed to shake anybody else's faith, but rather to get an insight into how believers reconcile the held conviction that their religion is the only correct one, when that entails, intended or not, putting the religion (or religious practices) of others down. "Down" not to be understood in the veterinary sense.

I appreciate your previous explanation of (anyone) being expected to live up to their moral code and not being able to violate one's own conscience and justify that action at the same time. So would those who nevertheless engage in the pursuit of "my way or the highway" be suffering from vincible or invincible ignorance?

Or let me put it another way: is it a requirement to hold one's religion to be the only correct one, so that one's own personal faith may be "true"? And if so, how would the argument that otherwise one might as well not bother (heard from some here, albeit not from all) fit into any of this, let alone affording others the same validity take anything from the faith one holds?

Heavy, man. Let me put it this way: I hold these things to be true, and if you give me enough time I'll explain why. I'm going to stop short of saying "your results may vary" because I don't know what you're thinking or what results you expect to see. I'm starting from the assumption that all men are born with an innate knowledge of God. Whether they get all the pieces in place by the end of their lives is another thing (God knows I don't have them all) but again, they are responsible for what they do know. From our vantage point in time we see imperfectly (through a glass darkly) but I do believe God is just, despite what you may hear to the contrary. There are people who outright reject God, and there are others who simply haven't figured it all out, but that's okay, they have enough faith and enough information to go on.

As far as the "my way or the highway" thing, I think that comes from a misunderstanding of scripture, and a bad habit people have of taking one verse and making a whole religion out of it. I think even the Pope has said something like what I am saying but I don't remember how he said it.

But this is just me talking, you won't find this is the 39 articles.
 
Re: My Christian Beliefs

Heavy, man. Let me put it this way: I hold these things to be true, and if you give me enough time I'll explain why. I'm going to stop short of saying "your results may vary" because I don't know what you're thinking or what results you expect to see.
I'm not asking (not here nor in my original queries) on account of expecting any results that I already have pre-conceptions over. IOW a certain bias that I just expect to have confirmed. Outside of the fact that I see a conundrum that others may not even hold to exist. That I see it can of course be interpreted as having some pre-conception after all, yet I'm hopefully not extending that to expect answers that I've already arrived at myself. In such a case, asking anyone else would be pointless already.

Of those seeing the conundrum as not existing at all, it is of course pointless to expect anything altogether.
I'm starting from the assumptin that all men are born with an innate knowledge of God. Whether they get all the pieces in place by the end of their lives is another thing (God knows I don't have them all) but again, they are responsible for what they do know. From our vantage point in time we see imperfectly (through a glass darkly) but I do believe God is just, despite what you may hear to the contrary. There are people who outright reject God, and there are others who simply haven't figured it all out, but that's okay, they have enough faith and enough information to go on.
One can argue the premise (assumption) on which the conclusions that follow are based, but if one replaces "assumption" with "belief", the pointlessness of any such argument in the context of our exchange becomes pretty clear. Especially in view of the fact that I asked something of believers.

The conclusions you subsequently draw thus appearing as pretty much valid.
As far as the "my way or the highway" thing, I think that comes from a misunderstanding of scripture, and a bad habit people have of taking one verse and making a whole religion out of it. I think even the Pope has said something like what I am saying but I don't remember how he said it.
Thank you.

The circle to "expectation" and "confirmation" closes after all in that I guess I DID want to hear something like this. Not some abuse of the thinking capacity that one is equipped with by shoving the addressed conundrum (respectively its handling) on any particular psalm that one finds convenient in address of what one chooses not to address oneself.

But this is just me talking, you won't find this is the 39 articles.
That may be but I've heard it from many other people of faith and not just from those of the Christian one.

You've answered my question and that you're the only one in here that has, may show the dire state that Christianity is brought to by many of the supposedly pious here.

But it thankfully also shows them as not being a representative sample.
 
Re: My Christian Beliefs

Like I told dox - the number of angels at the Sepulchre can change, depending on how many seconds or minutes, etc., pass. I guess that never crossed your mind, did it, Somerville???
Yeah, it reads like the old joke about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

So spare me your sophomoric analysis.

Christ is Risen in all four Gospels and various epistles. So when they do agree unanimously, you don't believe it anyway, which says a lot about your bias.

So nice try.

We all know the story of the Risen Christ being told in the Gospels. When the stories do agree with each other, that says little more than the fact such stories were being widely told in the early days of the faith OR that later editors simply did a bit of editing.

Yes, a nice try but not a very effective defence, I must say. You totally failed to respond to the points I made in that earlier post. One may only posit that you really don't know as much in the way of apologetics as you have so often claimed in this forum.
 
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