I guess I just thought the Bible was common knowledge even for non-religious people. Hmm.
I also think a lot of people won't open a Bible because they feel guilty that they've been too bad. Reading stories of Paul, David, etc....made me feel a little better about myself.
I must confess that I identify more with the more "spirited" characters myself. :lol:
Paul was accepted by the Apostles, including Peter, the rock on which the Church was built, and John, the disciple whom Christ loved. From a Christian point of view that makes Paul's conversion and contact with Christ basically unimpeachable.
It is certainly true that Christ trumps Paul, and, except for a few Protestants down the ages, the Gospels have always been treated with greater reverence than the epistles. But I'm always perplexed when people say things like Christ was more tolerant than Paul. Actually, Christ often is clearly marking out the path of perfection, the path of the Saint. Hence, we see Christ say things like to look on a woman with lust is to commit adultery in your heart. Paul actually adapts Christianity, providentially no doubt, to the Gentiles and with far greater emphasis on the spiritual path of the average, sinful man. There are imbalances in Paul's perspective no doubt, which will burst forth in Augustinian and then, even more so, in Protestant Christianity (Luther's devotion to a Pauline position is so strong as to make him refer to the epistle of James as the epistle of straw and wish to remove it from the Scriptures, for example).
I learned something this weekend I never knew. A man named Saul was determined to kill off al followers of Jesus Christ and aided in the murder of nearly all of them. He then had a "experience" that changed him to then spread the word of Jesus. According to this documentary he changed his name to Paul and spent his life spreading the word. It went on to say if it were not for this man Paul it may be that Chrisitanity never would have survived for the lack of followers. One question jumps out at me, if Jesus was the Messiha (sp) why was his following so tiny? Just how many of his follwers were there? I know nothing of the Bible but I always assumed there were hundreds of thousands following him (Jesus) while he was alive.
...if Jesus was the Messiha (sp) why was his following so tiny? Just how many of his follwers were there? I know nothing of the Bible but I always assumed there were hundreds of thousands following him (Jesus) while he was alive.
Jesus, if he existed, was a human being. In his time, revolutionaries were a dime a dozen. The historical circumstances of his existence and his effect in the society of his time are well documented... they were minimal.
Why Jesus became a godly symbol, the Christ, is a sociology issue that is also well documented and analyzed, and it has nothing to do with human existence, only with mass human psychological behavior.
There is no Messiah because there are no gods, and we all know that is true.
I also think a lot of people won't open a Bible because they feel guilty that they've been too bad.
Think again. A lot of people won't open a bible because unless you're invested in reading it, it's pretty boring.
I guess I just thought the Bible was common knowledge even for non-religious people. Hmm.
...Jesus was more or less a pacifist, communitarian, spiritualist and religious reformer.
... You have no evidence for the statement "there are no gods," it's just a toutology, but that wasn't the topic here was it.
You have a good point. They've only sold a couple of them over the years, so it must be boring.
You ever seen a non-Christian pick up the bible for a bit of light reading?
There were plenty of revolutionarires, and Jesus was not exactly one of them, Jesus was more or less a pacifist, communitarian, spiritualist and religious reformer.
You ever seen a non-Christian pick up the bible for a bit of light reading?
No one has evidence to support the claim that "a god exists", therefore no gods exist by definition.
You ever seen a non-Christian pick up the bible for a bit of light reading?
The remarkable thing about Jesus was somehow this man was every political philosophy known to man at the same time. [/sarcasm]
Jesus was a Republican.
Jesus was apolitical, but the only political philosophy compatible with Christian practice is libertarianism, which is the only political philosophy which truly respects the instructions of Christ.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic.
The person who really gave Christianity a boost was Constantine, who legitimized Christianity in the Roman Empire. It was the Romans who spread it to Europe, and the Europeans who spread it to the new world. Had it not been for Constantine, Christianity would have been a minor historical curiosity, a religion practiced for a time in a limited geographic space by a handful of devout followers.
So, why isn't Constantine sanctified?
You JUST learned the story of Saul/Paul? How is that possible?
And why can't American Christians understand that because of Constantine legitimizing Christianity in the Roman empire and it's consequential spread throughout Europe, they are Christians as a result. Europeans brought Christianity to North America and decimated the indigenous populations or forced them to convert. North America could have been dominated by any other religion of any other people who could have arrived here first and done the same. This country is largely Christian because of who settled it, period. It wasn't some divine 'god bless America' manifestation.
Strangely enough, you invoked people who were here "first," and who had different religions.
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