Important Issues of Christendom

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Marcylene

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Fringe Issues
August 18, 2005
"And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient" (II Timothy 2:24).

One of the plagues of modern-day Christendom is that many take up side issues and deem them all important--a point of separation between them and other Christians. Health foods, dress codes, and church constitutions are not unimportant, but Christians can hold different opinions and still be walking with God. Note the Scriptural admonitions: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace [i.e., primary issues]; not with meats [i.e., fringe issues], which have not profited them that have been occupied therein" (Hebrews 13:9); "foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes" (II Timothy 2:23).

On the other hand, there are many Scriptural commands to hold "fast the faithful word" (Titus 1:9); to "keep that which is committed to thy trust" (I Timothy 6:20). Many of these points of "sound doctrine" (Titus 1:9) are absolutely essential, such as the Deity of Christ, the authority of Scripture, salvation by grace, the resurrection of Christ, and many others clearly and specifically taught in Scripture. Perhaps the rule might be, if it's an essential doctrine, teach and defend it at all costs; if it's a secondary doctrine, teach it in "meekness" and love (II Timothy 2:25). But if it's a fringe issue, avoid strife over it, allowing brothers to exercise their freedom.

Is creationism a fringe issue? No! Few doctrines are so clearly taught in Scripture. Is it crucial to salvation? No! But it is essential to adequately understand the great, primary doctrines for it is foundational to them all. Furthermore, it is the subject of origins which the enemy has identified as a major battleground, vowing to destroy Christianity over this issue. Here we must stand, if we are to guard our faith. JDM
 
Nobody wants to destroy Christendom - except perhaps for those christians who cling to indefensible and outdated doctrines that merely make you look foolish in front of the world.

Take Pope Palpatine - he's out there as I speak holding a mass in Germany which he hopes will be the ignition point of a new wave of Catholicism in Europe. At the same time that he attempts what seems a laudable goal of bringing the other religions into friendly contact with Christianity he stands for a church that does not allow divorce, abortion, female priests or birth control. There will be NO new wave of Catholicism in Europe - unless it changes. A society in which its fundamental beliefs and culture clashes with that of its mainstream religion has long been believed to be in crisis - except that it seems the society is not in as much of a crisis as the religion.
 
Take Pope Palpatine - he's out there as I speak holding a mass in Germany which he hopes will be the ignition point of a new wave of Catholicism in Europe. At the same time that he attempts what seems a laudable goal of bringing the other religions into friendly contact with Christianity he stands for a church that does not allow divorce, abortion, female priests or birth control. There will be NO new wave of Catholicism in Europe - unless it changes. A society in which its fundamental beliefs and culture clashes with that of its mainstream religion has long been believed to be in crisis - except that it seems the society is not in as much of a crisis as the religion.
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This protestant wishes nothing but the best for Darth Benedictus, and I hope he is successful.

If the Catholic church were to allow divorce or female priests, then that would be in stark contrast to the Bible. As far as abortion, I can't point to a specific passage, but it's not much of a leap from Isaiah 49:1 (The Lord called me before I was born. He named me while I was in my mother's womb.) to say that life begins at conception, and that to allow abortion would be akin to allowing infanticide. Birth control is a little fuzzier of an issue-- I can see both sides of the issue, but I don't have enough Scriptural backing to say definitively that using birth control should or shouldn't be used.

So... my question to you Eon-- why should a religion be shaped by a society, rather than it's own holy writings? I certainly wouldn't expect a European Muslim to have any different requirements than a Saudi Muslim-- they must still follow the teachings of the Quran. That brings up another interesting point-- why is Islam spreading so quickly in Europe, when their beliefs and practices are generally much more rigid than those of Christians?
 
Islam is spreading to Europe because Islamic PEOPLE are moving to Europe - but how many generations does the faith stay long? A faith born of opression cannot thrive in an atmosphere of tolerance. The young are disaffected with the Mullahs and Imams that their parents brought with them. Some turn to extremism whilst others embrace secularity. There aren't many former Christian Europeans turning to Islam, I'll tell you that much.

I'll level with you, if Christianity continues to adhere to the bible dogmatically then it is finished as a faith. As a protestant you should have some sympathy with that statement - as protestantism was born from breaking the shackles of a dogmatic Catholic church. Darth Benedictus stepped up to the plate and as far as the already faithful are concerned he hit a home run - nobody else is cheering, however, as he merely promised more of the same. A promise to listen to the young, but not to pay heed to what they say.

If a religion does not meet the needs of its people, then they will forsake it. Europe is the cultural crossroads of the world, where Chinese Buddhist, Pakistani Muslim, African Christian and French Humanist meet. In Europe the Muslims are already admitting they need to move with the times if they are to stay relevant. The Catholic church has yet to make the same decision. The Anglican church is already looking to modernisation - women priests already exist, I believe. Gay priests are not too far behind. The Pope's inability to embrace birth control is killing his parishoners off in uncounted numbers in Africa and South America - how long will it continue before he is forced to accede?
 
You've read all the other discussions here on female roles in leadership, homosexuality, etc. and have read the Bible verses, so how can you say that Christianity must change its viewpoints to adhere to the masses? The Bible is very clear on most of these topics (less so for stuff like maybe abortion), and trying to teach otherwise is not the correct way to go for any professing Christian.
 
The truth is that petrified dogma's do not endure.

Society is changing - it has to. We need new rules to get on together because of the increasing complexity of our society and the increasing density of our population. Technology also adds its share of changes to the mix.

Initially Christianity tried to hold back progress - that failed. Now it has tried to cohabit with it - and that is failing. The only paths left are death or rebirth.

Increasingly, modern women will not accept a man telling them that they are not equally fitted to lead, teach and determine their own path through life. The Catholic church's dogma regarding birth control will DEPOPULATE AFRICA if it continues. Firstly AIDS will kill off milliions and the burgeoning, sick, population will consume the resources, overload the infrastructure and Africa will drop right back to the Stone Age. It has happened before, it will happen again. An increasing birth rate with increasing consumption of raw materials combined with advancing desertification and a collapse of the traditional methods of feeding the population. Decimation is the prettiest of possible outcomes in the cases I mention above - whole civilisations of millions of people have vanished utterly in the past.
 
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You ever wonder whether everything you read in the bible was put there by God, or whether it was put there by priests?

Unless the book is delivered actually printed by God himself I wouldn't be so fast to accept the book in your hand as the bible God intended you to read. One truth in every faith is the corruptible nature of man.
 
Do you have any proof of your statement? Or is it just conjecture? Don't take this the wrong way but I think it's pretty bold of you to question 2000 years' worth of beliefs without anything to back it up. That said, God is greater than man. Whatever man does, God can undo. It's highly doubtful God would allow His own Word to be construed, misenterpreted, or modified to something He didn't have intended.
 
I have to agree Christianity has withstood 2000 years. Times, they have been a-changin' for 2000 years. and, to quote Miss Marcylene

Break open the bread of God's Word anywhere; it's all good!
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What are you asking for proof of? In my last statement I said that you couldn't be certain that the bible in your hand was the bible God wanted you to believe - and you can't. The bible was written by men, it was edited by men and finally it's been printed by men. There have been famous typographical errors in bibles - for example the Adultery bible that missed out the NOT in "Thou shalt not commit Adultery". Was that bible divinely inspired?

People make mistakes and people are corruptible, shallow and evil. Not all people all of the time, but all people some of the time and some people all of the time.

Please look at all the questioning and conjecture over such things as what is required for salvation, whether Genesis is to be taken literally or whether God is in nature Trinity. If God doesn't allow his word to be misconstrued then what's going on?
 
Eon said:
What are you asking for proof of? In my last statement I said that you couldn't be certain that the bible in your hand was the bible God wanted you to believe - and you can't. The bible was written by men, it was edited by men and finally it's been printed by men. There have been famous typographical errors in bibles - for example the Adultery bible that missed out the NOT in "Thou shalt not commit Adultery". Was that bible divinely inspired?

People make mistakes and people are corruptible, shallow and evil. Not all people all of the time, but all people some of the time and some people all of the time.

Please look at all the questioning and conjecture over such things as what is required for salvation, whether Genesis is to be taken literally or whether God is in nature Trinity. If God doesn't allow his word to be misconstrued then what's going on?
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Well then, are we to say that we can't believe anything we read in textbooks, or any book for that matter? All of them are written by man, and all of them are fallible. And since man is fallible, there is the distinct possibility that everything I hear is false!

I'm still interested in why, exactly, you doubt the accuracy of the Bible; I can't find where in its history that it could be corrupted, other than your finger pointing.
 
You can't? Did you look?

Well, it all starts with the fact that the OT is a transcription of a Verbal record. An ancient tribal history, older than writing. It gets told and told and passed down through the ages - each elder or priest has a slightly different memory of it, and a slightly different interpretation. They agree on broad brush principles - but probably only because they don't actually KNOW what priests 300 miles away are saying.

Moving on from that we have the first codification of the document. Somebody transcribes the written history and the stories into a document. At this point you actually have the first Dogma - because now that it's written down people can disagree with it. Previously you have a discussion of IDEAS, suddenly you're talking about scripture. Of course the scripture is merely the most popular interpretations of the time - you get a narrowing of focus, the more extreme interpretations start getting supressed. You get your first instances of heresy - because now any priest can take the scrolls with him, get a fast horse and compare what a priest is saying 500 miles away with THE SCROLLS for accuracy. This is where persecution begins - as keeping THE SCROLLS and checking for accuracy creates a centralised priesthood. No longer are priests trained solely by the existing village priest, now they study the scrolls.

The centralised priesthood gets into a number of tussles with each other about the exact meaning of phrases. This replaces a discussion of central ideas and themes - suddenly it's far safer to discuss exactly what is meant by a sentence. Different ideas come into fashion - often these involve an editing of the Scrolls. The priesthood frequently fragments into splinter groups. As the priesthood becomes bigger and more organised it begins centralising power under its leader - this leader persues temporal as well as spiritual authority. Now the head priest has armies under his command, and he is often tempted to "set the world to rights" - unfortunately there is already a political class and whilst it and the priest class begin to intermarry the experts at politics can still be found wearing crowns. Eventually the priesthood becomes dominated by a strong ruler. This strong ruler views religion as a tool - whole branches of thought are declared anathema. Heresies become wider spread and some heresies attract political followings of their own. These different groups fight it out and when the winner is declared he often makes changes to the scrolls in order to clarify an issue of scripture that caused the heresy in the first place.

In extreme cases entire churches splinter off from the main religion - where these are geographically isolated and strongly defended they can survive as independent faiths. These faiths will often create their own versions of the scrolls that reflect their own cultural biases. In addition they create a wealth of supporting literature that make misquotes and misdirections more plausible.

In the case of Christianity you had an awful long period when the common man could not even read or understand the bible. In those periods it would have been childs play for an Arch-bishop or Pope to make even sweeping changes to the bible.

You had the period where a strong temporal leader seized control of the priesthood. Constantine locked the priests in debate until they could come up with an agreed version of the bible. This is history, it is not fantasy. It is not dry debate. Look it up. Many changes have been made. Different translations have been made - we have people on this site saying that English is not enough to study the bible anymore - in order for some apparent contradictions to become clear it must be studied in Greek. In Latin. In Aramaic. And we KNOW that the tales themselves predate even the EARLIEST written documents, because writing just hasn't been around long enough to have trapped the first stories told in the bible.

So God can't have passed the written word to anyone. They couldn't have read it! Of course many people, despite knowing all of the above refuse to regard the bible as anything other than 100% literally inerrant. Even the Catholic church doesn't do this!
 
First off, where are your sources? Second, you still fail to provide proof; you're merely stating possible scenarios, many of which appear to be far fetched. I don't claim to know too much about Christian history, far from it. I honestly wish I could study it more. But currently, here's what I've found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_history
http://www.equip.org/free/DA111.htm

Those are the only two I read so far. There are more links on the bottom of the wikipedia page, although I haven't read them yet. To summarize, many of the Old Testament events that take place are backed up by archeology. Despite some claims, not once does it err in accuracy.

The canonization of books is not a simple thing where a bunch of people decide which books go in and which books don't. It's an actual discussion that spans lifetimes by many different people. Martin Luther, for instance, didn't like the book of James, but that was because he misinterpreted what it said (Faith versus works issue). Therefore, books have always been questioned for their authenticity, not just selected by a small group and one point in time.

It's true that most Christians couldn't read, or weren't allowed to read the Bible, but I fail to see how that is relevent. For years the Church had practiced the unbiblicle principle of paying money to atone for one's sins until Martin Luther came along, yet not once was that part of the Bible changed.

Honestly, I cannot see how you can make your conclusions when you lack evidence to support it. I'm not saying you're wrong, but the very reason why there is ongoing debate over the authenticity over the Bible is the lack of evidence either way. In essence, this debate won't get anywhere because of our different conclusions being drawn to the same set of data.
 
Genesis is to be taken literally
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I am always to be taken literally OOPS I guess you meant the Book..(j/k) Couldn't resist.

and back to the topic at hand....

I am not sure how someone could not honestly dispute the validity of the Bible. As many different writers as the Bible had, yet one consistent theme.

But let me pose this question to the group: What do you believe the basic doctrines of the Bible are?

Gen
 
I see, so you won't take my word for it, but if I dig up some unsupported Wikipedia article, then you will?

Actually - no matter how many sources I provide, would you really believe me? Ah well, I COULD simply go to Wiki and gin up a quick post that would support what I just said above (actually I could copy and paste it!) but I'll go look for the works of others instead.

http://www.answering-christianity.com/authors_gospels.htm Here's one.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Canon/ And another.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/intro.html Here's one making the interesting point that a catholic bible is twelve books longer than a protestant one. Amongst other points.

http://www.answeringlds.org/index.html?artBibleResRev.html Here it seems that the Mormons rewrote their bible, and from the first thought it full of errors.

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521771005 Here's a guy who makes a living EDITING bibles. Today. The changes are so interesting and numerous that he wrote a book on how the King James bible has changed to date.


I could go on. Google gave me over 10 pages on my first search, so is it a case that you've never SEEN or that you've never LOOKED?
 
Sigh. This discussion is already moot, as I've already stated; At this point there's not really enough evidence to support it either way, from a historical standpoint (I've already given my sources and argument earlier. If you choose to ignore it that's your business). And honestly, I don't know enough about it to go into further discussion.

Frankly, I can't really see your point in some of your links. Mormanism is a cult; they took the Bible and changed it around to say what they want to say. It's a well-known fact. Sure, some guy rewrites Bibles to modernize it. But every old version from the original King James version is still around. Heck, he's even telling people what the changes are. Your third link is nothing but an attack with unsupported opinions and a total of one example.

Many passages relate God-ordained atrocities; such passages are unworthy of the Christian God. Some biblical precepts are both unreasonable and unlikely since they are in obvious disagreement with common sense as well as the qualities of character which are attributed to God. Some biblical statements are absurd in that they represent very primitive beliefs. The believability of many biblical stories--stories that are crucial to Christianity--are discredited by numerous inconsistencies. The picture is further complicated by the many different and conflicting interpretations that are often given to a specific passage by sincere, well-intentioned believers
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That, sadly, is one entire paragraph trying to disprove the Bible. It has absolutely zero factual information in it, zero examples, and as far as I can tell, zero credibility. There are a LOT better sites you can link if you want to prove a point; why pick a shoddily written, subjective one? Really, you're dissing Wikipedia, then you pull up a site like this?

To be fair, you still have two seemingly decent sites that you linked. But really, what is the point? I could find some more sites that support my stance, but are we going to just mindlessly sling sites and/or unsupported arguments back and forth until the other person gives up? I personally have come to my stance through more than just reading up on historical accuracy.
 
That was, actually, my point. I can sling ten google search pages of unsupported sites that attack or defend the bible.

I was speaking in grander terms, in dialectics, if you like. The history of struggle, of religion. You asked me for somebody elses opinion on specifics. I was trying to discuss at a higher level than specifics, searching for a discussion on a platonic, absolute, level.

Only when you leave behind the mud of specifics can you fly. :)
 
So you're saying a discussion pitting one person's word against another's is better than one based on facts? If you're going to come in and say, the Bible isn't what God intended, you'd better be able to support it. Otherwise, it's your word against the Bible's... who am I to trust more? Am I really supposed to trust your credibility, despite you having a biased opinion against the Bible and that I've never met you, nor have I seen you in person? By the way, I didn't ask for someone else's opinion. I asked for facts and sources.

Are you really having a discussion, or are you simply trying to convince me that the Bible is not credible? If it's the former, then you would address the counterpoints that I brought up. Since you did not, I can only assume it's the latter.
 
Who here has the most open mind about the bible, you or I? I think you'll find on deeper reflection that it is not *I* who has the biased view of the bible.

http://www.alabamaatheist.org/awareness/questions/biblesays.htm

Another site that includes writings by fundamentalist christians claiming that the bible was altered in medieval times. What do you actually WANT from me by way of proof?

Okay - please research Qumran Cave 4 for me, if you would. You will discover the finding of 157 fragmentary biblical texts that disagree with the source documents that formed the bible as you know it. Here's an example of a biblical mistake, for example...

II Chronicles 21:20-22:1-2. These verses read in the King James Version:

"Thirty and two years old was he [Jehoram] when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired. Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned. Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign ..."
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I'll do the maths here for you, in case you miss the problem with the above...

Jehoram is 32 years old when he becomes king.
Jehoram is 40 years old when he dies.
Ahaziah becomes king at that time, at the age of 42.
Ahaziah is Jehoram's youngest son.

So therefore Ahaziah is 2 years older than his father!

Surely this is a mistake! And in fact the Greek Septuagint the line reads that Ahaziah was twenty years old when he began to reign. THIS makes sense, as it means that Jehoram was 18 when he had his youngest son.


There are more examples.

Let us now look at II Kings 24:8 in the KJV:
"Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign..."

And now II Chronicles 36:9 in the KJV:
"Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign..."
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Note that both quotations are from the King James bible - that's a clear contradiction. Another error.

The fact is that the Old Testament in the modern King James Bible is based upon the Masoretic text, which was authorised by TALMUDIC JEWISH scholars between 5 and 10 centuries AD. These guys wrote the text that forms the basis of the OT and they don't even believe in Jesus Christ, so HOW CAN THEY BE DIVINELY INSPIRED?

And if the above doesn't shake the idea that the book you hold in your hand is the inerrant word of God, then NOTHING I can say to you will. If you're so far gone that you take this as a compliment, then I truly despair for you. In addition, if I were a Christian I would pray devoutly for your soul, because it seems to me that by following a broken book blindly, you can only arrive at salvation by chance!

I hope I have answered your points now, and given you something concrete to chew over. I presented to you these EXACT problems in more general terms in the hope that you could philosophically arrive at the notion that you need to check out the source in order to hold the divine word in your hand. You refused to entertain the notion and now the truth must taste bitter to you, and be just as hard to swallow.

Where you go from here is up to you. Easier to build a wall than undertake a journey, isn't it?
 
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I am now done with this conversation since you are now using personal attacks and you are criticizing me based on preconcieved generalizations when you don't even know who I am. I can study Biblical history on my own, thank you. I don't need to do it with someone shoving down personal attacks down my throat. Good day.
 
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