PaulS

Of course that is your prerogative, but I don't see it as so flippant. Faith or belief gives much comfort to many, but that doesn't necessarily make it accurate. Whereas science is not 'faith' at all, but rather it is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. Scientific practices such as observation and experiment; the development of falsifiable hypotheses; the relentless questioning of established views—have proven uniquely powerful in revealing the surprising, underlying structure of the world we live in, including subatomic particles, the role of germs in the spread of disease, and the neural basis of mental life. And of course, evolution. As I said before, it is an incontrovertible fact that humans have evolved during the history of life on Earth. The only people that refuse to acknowledge this are religious people who, I would argue, are putting faith before evidence. They are following religious dogma, not evidence based on facts. I used to do this when I was a practicing fundamental Christian - it was comforting 'knowing' that my beliefs were right. Acknowledging the science of evolution can be the most threatening thing to a Christian's faith - if there was no original sin, no Adam & Eve story, then what do we make of Jesus & atonement! They are good questions and perhaps a good place for Progressive Christianity to start. The people who wrote things that made it to today's bible, were just trying to understand the earth. Creation stories made sense because they didn't have the science available to them to better understand things. That's why they used to think the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, that rain came down through shutters in the sky, that God made man out of mud. Science and modernity has helped us better understand the origins of our, and other, species. To ignore this is choosing to put belief before evidence, but I know how hard it is to 'choose' to question one's faith.

That's great. I hope you enjoy participating here.

I am sure you are convinced that people should believe the bible as you do - most Christians are. But noticeably of course, many Christians disagree on what that 'belief' entails. It seems 'Churchianity' to you is just that other Christians don't believe the same as you - You're right and they're wrong. That's a pretty common position amongst Christians from what I can see. There is a lot of information throughout our archives and previous threads here about biblical research and what biblical scholarship can show us. I hope you enjoy your research. I personally find, still to this day, it amazing about how much I 'knew' to be true about Jesus/God/Christianity is actually up for debate. My only recommendation for you would be to relax your certainty when researching. If you are open to understanding biblical scholarship, you may find out many different things that you are presently convinced you know. Whatever the case, enjoy the ride.

Yeah, nah. Believing 'the' bible is like 'believing' a recipe book. It is a conglomeration of a number of writings that somebody (or a group of somebodies) decided at some point would comprise of the single volume we now call the Holy Bible. There were lots of different writings and ideas that didn't make the grade for one reason or another. Even the OT references writings that we can't read today because they no longer exist, but they were important to believers at that time. There is no shortage of people to tell me how I 'should' believe the bible, funnily enough, how they all believe the bible is different between themselves. Yet no doubt they are all convinced that they have the correct understanding.

My experience is everybody, JW's included, will have a belief that the way 'they' read the text is correct. Clearly there are wide and diverse opinions and beliefs about what texts actually mean (and I'm not even touching here on whether the writings are accurate copies of what was actually said or even in fact if words were said, if the speaker's own 2000 year old understanding is actually correct). Discussing different views can be interesting, but I don't think anybody's view is ever formed without some sort of conditioning or influence from other factors. So you might call it 'dogma' whereas I would call it 'influence'. When I think of the word 'hell' I think of all the different understandings and interpretations that people will tell you Hell means. I also think that Hell as mentioned in the NT is never mentioned in the OT. I also recognize how Hell as it is sometimes thought of in the NT was never a thought bubble inn ancient Israel's mind until a hundred or so years before Jesus existed and was only introduced as a Greek influence. So yeah, when it comes to hearing the word 'hell', I think a lot of different things.

Whilst in context evolution is both a fact and theory, it is an incontrovertible fact that humans have evolved during the history of life on Earth. And biologists have identified and investigated mechanisms that can explain the major patterns of change. So in this regard it is not 'just' a theory. That we haven't yet ascertained all of the precise details as to how life started doesn't discount what we have ascertained about evolution.

You won't get banned here for quoting Jesus. But quoting Jesus is not that hard to do - anyone who has a bible can quote what Jesus is alleged to have said. Whether the sources are accurate or not, and how they are interpreted, is another matter entirely.

MadJW - does this mean you don't accept the science of evolution, or are you interpreting man's "creation" as something 'supernatural', e.g. God just zapped fully-made man into existence? I read Genesis more as myth and storytelling, from a people who couldn't possibly know better but who were trying to understand the world and their experience in it.

I would argue that is a point of debate and depends on individual opinions. Progressive Christians would probably argue they believe some things about Jesus but not others, and I have seen there are Christians who say progressive Christians can't be Christians, just like I know some Christians think JWs aren't Christian or at the very least, are out of step with true Christianity. So I think it is only 'obvious' to somebody who claims 'they' know.

Of course, Jesus could be mistaken. He may have fervently believed that even, but whether it is true or not is another matter.

The issue I (and many Progressive Christians) have with 'scripture', is that we now know that a lot of it has been written by people falsely claiming to be somebody they weren't, that scribes have altered texts throughout the ages, and that many texts are open to all sorts of interpretation. There are huge question marks concerning a lot of scripture and even whether Jesus or others actually did do things aor say things represented in scripture. That's not saying nothing can be gained or enjoyed by reading scripture, just that to me the choice isn't as stark as 'scripture or dogma'. I think in any religion, even Jehovah Witnesses, dogma plays a part in how those groups form their beliefs and understanding.

We're pretty accommodating and accepting here MadJW, and as long as people post in accordance with the Guidelines (https://tcpc.ipbhost.com/guidelines/) they accepted when they became a site member , there should be no issue. I don't think too many here are in fear of scripture, but you may find many different interpretations and understandings of what scriptures means to who, including understanding history and what can and can't be substantiated, rather than simply held as a belief. As long as you respect that, again, there should be no issue. I hope you enjoy participating here. Cheers Paul

Thanks for participating here, Tariki, and you're welcome back anytime of course. Look after yourself. Cheers Paul

I grew up in a fundamental Christian Church and thought nothing of it. I thought all Christians were the same (more or less, Catholics didn't quite make the grade ) and I thought that non-believers understood Christianity but deliberately chose not to follow it. Funnily enough, it wasn't until after I left Christianity that I came to learn that most non-Christians thought Christian's were crazy!

Personally, I think Jesus probably was thinking of the God of Israel and his message was primarily directed at Jews telling them to get right with their (and THE) God. I mean, after all, it was the culture and religious experience he grew up in, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was 'disapproving' so to speak of worshipping other Gods. But I think you're right in that he didn't really care about that bit as much as he did about loving your neighbour as yourself which was demonstration of commitment to 'God' in that you were celebrating and respecting God's creation - your fellow man. I don't think Jesus was God, or God's son, anymore than any one of us could take that title. I do think though that Jesus had a unique way of looking at relationship with God and he had some groundbreaking ideas for Israel at that time about how relationship with God and others should really look. I'm not quite as convinced he shared those feelings for non-Jews, but I don't need to know that to see for myself that loving our neighbours as ourselves is a pretty good rule to live by.

Well there you go - maybe I'm becoming a Buddhist without knowing!

I think I'm starting to understand meaningless as not something that should be portrayed as negative and forlorn, as in because there isn't somebody/something behind the scenes either observing or participating in our lives that subsequently there is no point, but rather precisely because our lives are meaningless, we actually have all the power in the universe to give our lives meaning.

Well Amida-driven or not, I agree that the above is a very useful way to frame one's life.

Thankyou for sharing and explaining, Tariki. I can see how such an understanding of Spirit would sit outside and alongside any Christian understanding of Spirit. From what I take as Jimmy B's particular Christian take on the Holy Spirit.....I hope he may participate in further discussion.

I have no issue. I think things can mean different things to different people but I do agree that for people to try and discuss a particular idea, we need to agree how to discuss that idea. In this thread, I started talking about early Christian beliefs and variations, when Jimmy B responded that we should rely on the 'Holy Spirit' to be our guide. So in this sense I was asking Jimmy B if that so labelled 'Holy Spirit' could be properly understood with credibility issues facing the various Gospel authors (and Paul) and also the notion that somehow the Spirit can guide 'correctly' when on the face of it, it seems to have trouble just getting Christian interpretation of the bible on the same page, let alone dealing with what individuals feel is 'guidance' from said Spirit. Maybe Jimmy B will participate in the discussion in due course. I think I understand Tariki's understanding of 'spirit' as being in the sense of a Reality that is healing. I'm not sure I agree myself (in that the sense that I don't know we are 'healing' per se - maybe we are) and I prefer (presently at least) a term contributor Rom has used here before about the universe 'unfolding' - that is the universe is progressing as it will, for better or for worse, but not in the dualistic sense but just a common term for it being what it will be.

Again, this begs the question that if there is a single Holy Spirit that will guide all Christians into truth, why do so many Christian denominations have such distinctly different interpretations on the Bible? Ranging from Catholics to Baptists to Mormons to Jehovah Witnesses to Pentecostals - the list goes on - there are something like 45,000 different denominations within Christianity. Why wouldn't the Holy Spirit guide them all into the same 'truth'?

Interestingly enough, the people who wrote about the 'Holy Spirit' doing these things also believed the world was going to end in their lifetimes. Do you think that affects their credibility when it comes to things they also say about the Holy Spirit? If they were wrong about the coming of God's Kingdom in their lifetimes, could their references to the 'Holy Spirit' just be cultural belief and not reality also? And Bart Erhman makes some interesting points about the Holy Spirit 'guiding' Christians: a) "if it’s true that the Holy Spirit is the one who provides the correct interpretation of Scripture, then why is it that so many people who claim to have the Holy Spirit cannot agree on what the Bible means?" I mean simply look at the extensive number of Christian denominations with distinctively varied interpretations of scripture - undoubtedly all believing the HS has provided them with the correct guidance. b) If I “need” the Holy Spirit to interpret passages of the bible (and I'm an atheist), why have I interpreted them in the same way that people who allegedly have the Holy Spirit have interpreted them? So then if the Holy Spirit is unreliable concerning scriptural interpretation, is such not even more unreliable when we talk about it 'guiding' us in general? Who is really doing the guiding - the HS or our own minds?

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I tend to agree Tariki. I think Jesus grew into a teaching role shaped by his own community and teachers. Jesus possibly caused a movement with his new teachings on love being a focus and a personal relationship with God instead of via the bureaucratic Temple priests and processes. I think this message was directed at the Jews and I think Jesus may have actually believed the end of the world was nigh and Israel's Roman oppressors would be overthrown. As we now know, it didn't happen. That left Jesus' followers trying to make sense of it all and I think that's where we see Paul and others holding true and preaching 'any day now'. Again, that didn't happen either and the Christianity began to morph into something else again. I think you're right concerning moving forward and Christianity needs to stop focusing on the man and begin to focus on whatever makes this world a better place to live.

100%.