God's purpose

jimbob said:
Oh yes. I would be interested (for a small value of interest) to know whether 16.5 and logger would consider each other to be Christians. The comment by 16.5 about Satan meeting his first Protestant implies a certain dogmatic view.
Click to expand...

Or, ya know, a joke?
 
That's good. Unfortunately it isn't a given.

If you want full rabid frothing, watch Ian Paisley Sr when discussing the hoor of Babylon (or "Pope" as he's more commonly known)
 
This Post

by abaddon quotes navigator but I did not write what is quoted and the quote-link is clearly not what was quoted.

What happened there?
 
jimbob said:
Oh yes. I would be interested (for a small value of interest) to know whether 16.5 and logger would consider each other to be Christians. The comment by 16.5 about Satan meeting his first Protestant implies a certain dogmatic view.
Click to expand...

I personally feel they're all Christians, and so are christian scientists. But those people don't all agree they all are.

16.5 do you have certain denominations or sects you don't consider christian but who profess to be?
 
RogueKitten said:
I personally feel they're all Christians, and so are christian scientists. But those people don't all agree they all are.
Click to expand...

Not only is there disagreement about what named religions are Christian, there is disagreement about the criteria that should be applied to determined whether a named religion is Christian. I guess one follows from the other, but in an important sense it's a level of indirection in the confusion that expresses just what a varied field of belief systems the Abrahamic religions are.

This is why I take a few steps back and laugh heartily at a poster who simply wants to define god's purpose as whatever his personal religion teaches, ignore all the other pertinent religions (or non-religion), and mock other posters for not seeing how straightforward the question and answer are.
 
JayUtah said:
Not only is there disagreement about what named religions are Christian, there is disagreement about the criteria that should be applied to determined whether a named religion is Christian. I guess one follows from the other, but in an important sense it's a level of indirection in the confusion that expresses just what a varied field of belief systems the Abrahamic religions are.
Click to expand...
There's also a difference between what a religion teaches and what an individual of that religion believes.
 
What about Gnostic sects? What bible books are cannon?

I would think that the Book of Mormon is a bit leftfield for most mainstream Christians.
 
RogueKitten said:
There's also a difference between what a religion teaches and what an individual of that religion believes.
Click to expand...

By all means, which is why I mentioned my experience in rural Italy. Living now in Utah I can also cite differences between what the Mormons teach officially and what some of its members believe and attribute to the faith. And as I wrote above, putting Malleus malificarum on the Index didn't prevent people from using it with the belief that it gave them divine justification.

Further, there are also historical shifts in doctrine within a religion. Again, living in Utah (although less important now with the advent of the Internet) lets me look at some of the very strange things Mormon leaders taught and believed in the 1800s. Although they aren't taught today, you can't just walk away from them. Professors of religion make bold claims, not the least of which is some form of communion with an almighty superbeing. If some of those claimed communions end up in retrospect looking quite provincial and anachronistic, this casts doubt on the claims.

A discussion of god's purpose can't escape that there is ever only an attribution of purpose. All statements of god's purpose are third-party claims. It therefore cannot escape the followup question, "How do you know?" Presenting a sanitized version of some religion's progressive groping for answers to those questions does disservice to the claim. While it is in an organized religion's best self-serving interest to portray it's formulation of god's purpose as reliable, resolute, and never-changing, the reality is always far different.

And that brings us back to your original statement, and my observation some posts above that we are not diligent if we simply limit candidate attributions of god's purpose to the most recent sterile, abridged decretals of the titular churches. There is nothing magical or necessary about the centralized bureaucracies of these that limit consideration of belief. There are a vast number of people who identify loosely under one banner or another, but who fly their own private flags regarding god's purpose. Pointing out that they don't adhere to some prepackaged version of Abrahamic worship doesn't somehow mean we don't consider their claims.
 
jimbob said:
I would think that the Book of Mormon is a bit leftfield for most mainstream Christians.
Click to expand...

More than that, most simply outright accuse it of being a 19th century fabrication. But as I wrote above generally with respect to canon, why does that matter? Why arbitrarily accept Thomas Aquinas as a valid commentator on doctrine, and reject Joseph Smith?

The joy of the atheist position is the distance from all this sectarianism that allows it to be seen as the silly pointless infighting it really is. Yet for some people those sectarian divisions are so very important.
 
JayUtah said:
I did offer the wisdom of the Malleus malificarum, another of the Catholic church's great pearls of wisdom.
Click to expand...

16.5 said:
eta: Might as well clean up a couple of more egregious misrepresentations in the meantime..... Malleus malificarum was CONDEMNED by the Catholic Church within three years of its publication.

The more you know!
Click to expand...

JayUtah said:
Which, naturally, completely eliminated its use by professing Christians as a religious justification for carrying out any sort of reign of terror. You might

Am I trying to turn this into a sectarian debate?
Click to expand...

JayUtah said:
And as I wrote above, putting Malleus malificarum on the Index didn't prevent people from using it with the belief that it gave them divine justification.
Click to expand...

Galloping goalposts, folks.

HEARTY LAUGHTER.

HA! HA! HA!
 
16.5 said:
Galloping goalposts, folks.
Click to expand...

Not at all. You wish to define acceptance by the Roman Catholic leadership as the criteria by which something can or cannot be cited as sources of Christian thought, belief, and practice. That's a purely arbitrary criterion, one that I never did respect and continue not to respect. For my purposes it simply doesn't matter whether the Catholic church officially approves of something or not.

In contrast I pointed out that condemnation by the Roman clergy, for all it was worth, did not prevent he work from being used in its intended capacity. You may not wish to pay attention to anything that isn't Catholic, but I have no such allegiance. You may not hobble your critics to the same preconceptions under which you operate.

Whether you like it or not, the work was produced by Catholic authors who intended to do the work of the Catholic church as they understood it. The later condemnation is just an example of what I wrote about previously, that these factions are beset with people running around saying whatever they feel like it, and others arbitrarily accepting or rejecting it. No rhyme or reason; yet this is the milieu out of which we are supposed to have arrived at a clear, singular, unmistakable picture of god's purpose.
 
Last edited:
The witch burners used the malleus malefactorum to justify their actions. The Pope might have condemned it but individual churches sure didn't. Although some religions/denominations/sects have strong internal structure (roman Catholicism, Greek orthodox, southern baptist, Mormon) that doesn't mean every church of these all teach the same things.

Besides that, until the 70s the catholic mass was said in its own special form of Latin that nobody could understand anyway, so who knows what people thought they were being taught?

Makes no sense to me how the catholic church preached in a language nobody could understand. I cannot fathom that. Not to mention it is not the same Latin that romans actually spoke, because I know that and I still can't understand the church Latin.
 
RogueKitten said:
The witch burners used the malleus malefactorum to justify their actions. The Pope might have condemned it but individual churches sure didn't.
Click to expand...

But as our poster insinuates, it was condemned by the Catholic leadership. And if the Catholic leadership says so, then history apparently must yield. Whatever the Catholic leadership says is the truth, and no truth exists that isn't endorsed or promulgated by the Catholic leadership. If the Catholic leadership doesn't discuss it, then it has no part in this debate.
 
JayUtah said:
When you're finished laughing, please address the points I raised.
Click to expand...

Just as soon as you admit that this claim:

"another of the Catholic church's great pearls of wisdom."

Was completely false.

Until then? HEARTY LAUGHTER
 
JayUtah said:
But as our poster insinuates, it was condemned by the Catholic leadership. And if the Catholic leadership says so, then history apparently must yield. Whatever the Catholic leadership says is the truth, and no truth exists that isn't endorsed or promulgated by the Catholic leadership. If the Catholic leadership doesn't discuss it, then it has no part in this debate.
Click to expand...

I'm not here to complain about anybody, you and I can talk about it if we want to. :)
 
16.5 said:
Just as soon as you admit that this claim:

"another of the Catholic church's great pearls of wisdom."

Was completely false.
Click to expand...

No. But my all means keep ignoring my posts. It's not as if I need to point out to others your bullying and evasion. The authorship of the book was a point I discussed in the post I've asked you to address.

Until then? HEARTY LAUGHTER
Click to expand...

You seem to resort to mockery every time you are asked to explain yourself. I do not respond to such puerility.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom