Korean Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - American teens snub Christian message

Speak Korean Now!

Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!

Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"

FAQ

Memberlist

Usergroups

Profile

American teens snub Christian message
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next

Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum

View previous topic :: View next topic

Author

Message

Atassi

Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:06 pm Post subject:

seoulunitarian, thank you for your time. I enjoyed reading your posts. Atassi

Atassi

Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:08 pm Post subject:

Xian wrote:

Atassi wrote:

Junior, I trust the ancient King of Abyssinia more when he said "Only a hair separates our faith and Islam". I think a Christian king that was in the past well-known to be wise and just to his people should be listened to a million times before someone should listen to you say otherwise.

The fundamental tenet of Christianity? Meaning, your belief is Christian and others are anti-Christ? Keep your tenet, but don't quell serious debate here on this forum with your close-mindedness...

Serious debate!!!! Be serious, it is a DEBATE!!! It is amazing how people start a Christian debate and then are so quick to jump on anyone who may indicate a Christian view point on this site.

You cannot debate without an open mind. A debate like that is no debate.

seoulunitarian

Joined: 06 Jul 2004

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:10 pm Post subject: re:

Atassi wrote:

seoulunitarian, thank you for your time. I enjoyed reading your posts.

Atassi

Thanks, it's encouraging to hear that.

Peace

Xian

Joined: 08 Jan 2006

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:10 pm Post subject:

flakfizer wrote:

gang ah jee wrote:

Junior wrote:

yep...if you've been raised in the faith from childhood, then teenage years are generally an escape into sex drugs and Rock'nroll.

Many people return to it later though I think.

Why would God let them back? They've betrayed him like Judas.

Never heard of the prodigal son, eh?

Consider Peter also, His situation wasn't much different to Judas, they both rejected Jesus in different ways, but, they both handled it differntly. Many people see the Bible as a rule book, not understanding the nature of Scripture and the context given within verses, chapters, books, testaments and the entire BIble. They miss the whole point of the grace of God to humanity.

Moldy Rutabaga

Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:47 am Post subject:

Although I may disagree with some of the arguments presented, thanks for writing.. and early to boot!

Quote:

Of course, the most major doctrine in all of traditional Christendom is the divinity of Christ. As everyone knows, before movable type printing, volumes were copied by hand. In the case of Scripture, many thousands of scribes laboriously hand-copied sections of the Bible. At times, these copyists were tired; at times they were in a hurry; at times they were theologically motivated to make changes. Hence, "errors" entered into the biblical manuscripts, now accounting for tens of thousands of variations in readings, some minor, some not-so-minor.

But we approach this from a 21st-century mindset, deeply suspicious of human error and motivations. But firstly, these were men who dedicated their lives to the accurate transmission of scripture and were not 9-to-5 drones. Secondly, no individual copyist would be likely to aggrandize to himself the authority to make changes; being caught would bring consequences. Thirdly, such changes or errors would be cross-indexed against other extant copies and would be rooted out, unless the copy was the only one to survive before a new copy could be produced from it.

Quote:

One of the not-so-minor variations is found in the opening line of Mark's gospel, which reads, "This is the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God." The tiny, yet theologically powerful, "Son of God" is not found in the earliest manuscripts. It is a later scribal addition to bring Mark into line with later developments in Christology, and the other gospels (which almost all scholars acknowledge were written after Mark). What makes "the Son of God" so strange in the context of Mark's gospel is that, throughout the rest of his gospel, Mark takes the prophet Daniel's lead in referring to Christ as the "Son of Man(kind)."

According to Wikipedia, there was indeed some confusion as to Christ's role within Christian belief. Nevertheless, because Christ is considered both God and Man Daniel's quote is not a contradiction. Secondly, not all scholars believe Mark was written first, and such dates are approximations. Thirdly, some of the apostolic acts were written before the age of the gospels and corrections to Mark might have been made in light of such sources. These are of course only theories. Perhaps the term 'messiah' was enough.

Quote:

Another vital Christian doctrine is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But again, Mark gives us redactionary issues on the resurrection. The earliest manuscripts of Mark end with the discovery of the empty tomb in 16:8... The later verses were added to confirm an evolving belief in a resurrected Christ.

Again, there are references to the resurrection in Acts and other apostolic works predating the gospels. As to why there are these changes in Mark's text we can only form guesses. There was a fellow on this forum a few months ago who argued quite angrily and strenuously that the early church did not believe in a resurrected Christ and that all references were later forgeries. I can only plead common sense; why in heaven's name (literally) would groups of people risk mutilation and death for someone who offered a nice lifestyle and not personal redemption?

Part 1.
Ken:>

Smee

Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:51 am Post subject:

Quote:

Acts 17:32
At the mention of rising from the dead, some of them burst out laughing.

Moldy Rutabaga

Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:57 am Post subject:

Quote:

A third important doctrine of Christianity, and one which I do not personally hold, is the belief in the Trinity. This is actually one of the more interesting and obvious redactionary biblical doctrines. In Matthew 28:19, the writer states, "baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." This is not included in early manuscripts, and the Church did not officially assent to the Trinity doctrine until the fourth century, most of the churches having a doctrine of "the holy two" previous to this (see the Council at Nice). One would think that if pro-Trinity scriptures were in the text from the beginning, it would not have taken Church leaders four centuries to make a decision on the issue.

Indeed Tertullian was the first in 200 to use the term 'trinity'. The early church was unsure as to Christ's exact place in the scheme of things. What can I say? I suppose I can only bring up C.S. Lewis, who would say Christ didn't say 'take, analyze to death'; he said 'take, eat'. The gospel scriptures don't make the trinity theology explicit because perhaps they didn't see such arcania as important at the time. I also find the trinity difficult, as do many Christians. I guess in finality I say that Christ died and was resurrected, was fully God and fully man, and that's enough without the geometrics.

Quote:

There are two versions of what happened to Judas after he supposedly betrayed Christ: Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:16-18. The Matthew version tells us that Judas, full of guilt, threw his thirty pieces of silver on the floor and immediately went to hang himself. The Acts version (traditionally attributed to Luke) tells us that Judas purchased some land with the money, and one day while walking through his fields, he tripped and fell, his guts spilling out on the ground. The stories could not be more different.

Yes, that's difficult to put together. Wikipedia says this:

Quote:

A deeper reading of the Greek text of Acts([2]) gives another interpretation. According to The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament the literal translation of the second half of Acts 1:18 reads "He burst open in the middle [of the field] and all the inward parts poured out of him." (Douglas 1990.411) The word used for "inward parts" is σπλαγχνα, a word that appears elsewhere in the new testament in reference to deep emotion. This is similar to the word "Gut" in the english idioms, "Spilled his guts" or "I felt it in my gut". Given other accounts of Judas being guilt-ridden, this passage could be interpreted as an account of confession. Also because the word refers to non-non-specific internal organs, the translation "He poured his heart out" is just as valid as "his bowels gushed out".

One explanation could be found in another form of "hanging." This consisted of a person falling upon a spear or blade that had been wedged into the ground. Judas could have very well "hung" himself by jumping off a cliff at Akeldama onto the sharp rocks below, causing his innards to be ejected as he was impaled upon the rocks.

It's cheap to say that it's just a matter of misinterpreting the Greek original, but it's Wikipedia's argument at least that this is the case. I suppose the story is still quite similar; Judas killed himself, the money was used to buy land, and there is confusion over the details. We're on slippery ground when we admit such discrepancies, but that's all there is, a possible modern mistranslation of a first-century expression.

End of part 2. Well, I tried.

Ken:>

gang ah jee

Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:02 am Post subject:

As I understand it, logically Jesus can't have been the son of God for the simple reason that God doesn't exist. What are all your thoughts on this?

seoulunitarian

Joined: 06 Jul 2004

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:21 am Post subject: re:

gang ah jee wrote:

As I understand it, logically Jesus can't have been the son of God for the simple reason that God doesn't exist. What are all your thoughts on this?

I would say that's just as much as logical fallacy as saying that Jesus was the son of God for the simple reason that God does exist. Faith is not logical.

Peace

seoulunitarian

Joined: 06 Jul 2004

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:22 am Post subject: re:

Moldy, Thanks for your replies to what I wrote. Part 3 is coming:) Peace

Satori

Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:27 am Post subject:

Quote:

Some population models predict that just four per cent of teenagers will be "Bible-believing Christians" as adults

Hallaluia!

gang ah jee

Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:28 am Post subject: Re: re:

seoulunitarian wrote:

I would say that's just as much as logical fallacy as saying that Jesus was the son of God for the simple reason that God does exist. Faith is not logical.

If god does not exist, then Jesus can't have been his son. Where's the fallacy? Feel free to attack the premise though, since I'm forced to admit that, no, I cannot prove that god doesn't exist.

seoulunitarian

Joined: 06 Jul 2004

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:39 am Post subject: Re: re:

gang ah jee wrote:

seoulunitarian wrote:

I would say that's just as much as logical fallacy as saying that Jesus was the son of God for the simple reason that God does exist. Faith is not logical.

If god does not exist, then Jesus can't have been his son. Where's the fallacy? Feel free to attack the premise though, since I'm forced to admit that, no, I cannot prove that god doesn't exist.

petitio principii, argumentum ad ignorantiam, argumentum ad logicam, vacuous implication - choose one or mix 'em all together. Admittedly, I am attacking the premise. Could the premise be proven, your argument would, of course, be valid.

Peace

gang ah jee

Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:48 am Post subject: Re: re:

seoulunitarian wrote:

While I'd accept vacuous implication, the other fallacies obviously don't apply. If they did, how could my argument be valid, given the non-existence of god?

seoulunitarian

Joined: 06 Jul 2004

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:01 am Post subject: Re: re:

gang ah jee wrote:

seoulunitarian wrote:

While I'd accept vacuous implication, the other fallacies obviously don't apply. If they did, how could my argument be valid, given the non-existence of god?

They apply because your argument is invalid, given the inability to prove the non-existence of God.

Peace

Display posts from previous:

	Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum	All times are GMT - 8 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next
Page 4 of 6

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

TEFL International Supports Dave's ESL Cafe