PaulS

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?

Hi members, site users, visitors and even those who prefer to peruse but keep to themselves :), This site is a not-for-profit, privately-funded Forum, which I have committed to maintaining availability for the many people who use the resources here. I personally, literally, found the forum as a lifesaver years ago and since then I have seen many people benefit from having access to a site and Forum like this, both in current threads and the plethora of information and topics discussed found within our archives. I am yet to find a similar site/forum available on the internet. To that end I really hope to keep the site up and running as long as I can. This site will always remain freely available to anybody who wants to use it or participate here. But as you can expect there is a cost in funding such a site (I'm just talking about fees here to the hosting company). In 2021 almost 1/3 of the hosting costs were covered by donations. Thanks to those who donated - you know who you are. 2022 is on its way and I am again recommitted to funding the site for another year. I have had a generous unsolicited donation of $95 USD to contribute to 2022. If you feel this forum is of any value to you and you would like to contribute, please consider a contribution via paypal to 1paulsmedley@gmail.com Again, please do not feel obliged in any way, shape or form to contribute, but if you would like to, all the better! Thanks people Peace and goodwill Paul

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%.

Most Christians of one kind or another would probably like to believe they are practicing Christianity just how Jesus intended. Some might even be convinced that their beliefs are the only possibly correct understanding of Jesus. Now, I'm not sure a gap of some 2000 years actually helps the situation, but to add to the difficulty in understanding exactly what Jesus and early Christianity meant to followers, it seems that even early followers disagreed on major points about Jesus and his purpose. Here's an introductory chapter from legendary biblical scholar Bart Ehrman's book - 'Lost Christianities' which shines a light on just how diverse early Christianity actually was until one particular version eventually morphed into THE version. Personally, I think this book should be required reading so that we all might appreciate just how little we actually know about 'original' Christianity. Chapter One Recouping Our Losses It may be difficult to imagine a religious phenomenon more diverse than modern-day Christianity. There are Roman Catholic missionaries in developing countries, who devote themselves to voluntary poverty for the sake of others, and evangelical televangelists with twelve-step programs to assure financial success and prosperity. There are New England Presbyterians and Appalachian snake handlers. There are Greek orthodox priests committed to the liturgical service of God, replete with set prayers, incantations, and incense, and fundamentalist preachers who view high-church liturgy as a demonic invention. There are liberal Methodist political activists intent on transforming society, and Pentecostals who think that society will soon come to a crashing halt with the return of Jesus. And there are the followers of David Koresh — still today — who think the world has already started to end, beginning with the events at Waco, a fulfillment of prophecies from the book of Revelation. Many of these Christian groups, of course, refuse to consider other such groups Christian. All this diversity of belief and practice, and the intolerance that occasionally results, makes it difficult to know whether we should think of Christianity as one thing or lots of things, whether we should speak of Christianity or Christianities. What could be more diverse than this variegated phenomenon, Christianity in the modern world? In fact, there may be an answer: Christianity in the ancient world. As historians have come to realize, during the first three Christian centuries, the divergent practices and beliefs found among people who called themselves Christian were so vast and fundamental that the differences between Roman Catholics, Primitive Baptists, and Seventh Day Adventists pale by comparison. Most of these ancient forms of Christianity are unknown to people in the world today, since they eventually came to be reformed or stamped out. As a result, the sacred texts that some ancient Christians used to support their religious perspectives came to be proscribed, destroyed, or forgotten – in one way or another lost. Many of these texts claimed to be written by Jesus’ closest followers. Opponents of these texts claimed they had been forged. This book is about these texts, and about the lost forms of Christianity they tried to authorize. The Varieties of Ancient Christianity The wide diversity of early Christianity may be seen above all in the theological beliefs embraced by people who understood themselves to be followers of Jesus. In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in one God. But there were others who insisted that there were two. Some said there were thirty. Others claimed there were 365. In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that God had created the world. But others believed that this world had been created by a subordinate, ignorant divinity (why else would the world be filled with such misery and hardship?). Yet other Christians thought it was worse than that, that this world was a cosmic mistake created by a malevolent divinity as a place of imprisonment, to trap humans and subject them to pain and suffering. In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that the Jewish Scripture (the Christian “Old Testament”) was inspired by the one true God. Others believed it was inspired by the God of the Jews who was not the one true God. Others believed it was inspired by an evil deity. Others believed it was not inspired. In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that Jesus was both divine and human, God and man. But there were other Christians who argued that he was completely divine, and not human at all. (For them, divinity and humanity were incommensurate entities: God can no more be a man than a man can be a rock.) There were others who insisted that Jesus was a full flesh-and-blood human, adopted by God to be his son, but not himself divine. There were yet other Christians who claimed that Jesus Christ was two things: a full flesh-and-blood human, Jesus, and a fully divine being, Christ, who had temporarily inhabited Jesus’ body during his ministry and left him prior to his death, inspiring his teachings and miracles, but avoiding the suffering in its aftermath. In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that Jesus’ death brought about the salvation of the world. There were other Christians who thought that Jesus’ death had nothing to do with the salvation of the world. There were yet other Christians who said that Jesus never died. How could some of these views even be considered Christian? Or to put the question differently: how could people who considered themselves Christian hold such views? Why did they not consult their Scriptures to see that there were not 365 gods, or that the true God had created the world, or that Jesus had died? Why didn’t they just read the New Testament? It is because there was no New Testament. To be sure, the books that were eventually collected into the New Testament had been written by the second century. But they had not yet been gathered into a widely recognized and authoritative “canon” of Scripture.[1] And there were other books written as well, with equally impressive pedigrees — other Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses claiming to be written by the earthly apostles of Jesus.

That's how I used to introduce our two boys sometimes - "Hi, this is Chaos & Mayhem!"

And I'd go further to say that the earliest Christian context is likely nothing like what Christianity has morphed into in the early centuries following the death of Jesus. I doubt the earliest of Christians actually believed that Jesus' death was a sacrificial atonement in which one needed to 'believe in' to make it to Heaven. Being exposed to scholarship and understandings that threaten long-held beliefs and faith can be very uncomfortable for people who are so convinced with what they presently believe. They very much are, Nolose. That's why I am keen to keep it alive. It can be very quiet here at times but according to our stats there are lots of eyes watching here and accessing a range of material in the various threads and forums. I hope that helps people. I think it's even better when people generate discussion and share their thoughts. Thankyou for doing so.

My wife gave me this hip flask for my birthday a couple of years ago!

I would gladly, Rom. Maybe one day when this world opens up again! Frankly though, just now my focus is finishing my 3-weeks out here, as we are a completely dry vessel! I suppose my forced temperance could be viewed as a health benefit - probably more physical than mental though!