The Pope and China

Thus spake the God-Emperor. :notworthy:

I challenge you to find anything wrong with that! :stuck_out_tongue:

  1. Only one religion is true. I don’t believe in Pluralism or that truth is relative.

  2. I’m not giving you a modern liberal interpretation. Modernity has nothing to do with it, I told you, nature is gods creation and how he manifest himself according to Christianity. A rejection of sciencentic fact is a reject of truth and god.

  3. I take it case by case. Name one instance where I’m “not allowing” an interpretation.

Talking to you is painful, you’ll always have some fine print you think you find and think it’s so clever. Did I ever say I’m speaking for all Christians? Did I ever say young earthers don’t exist? NO. I think you know that but like to throw the arguement off it’s tracks.

I’m saying it’s not important to anything about the religion. If a person claims Jesus did not resurrect and it was metaphorical. Yeah, they are not Christians. That is the foundation of Christianity, that right there has no bend in interpretation. I can disagree with a Catholic on if he’s really eating the flesh of Jesus, but does it matter to Christianity. No, not really at the end.

I read everything in with common sense taking it in the most plain interpretation as possible, and that’s no different reading scripture. If you would like me to explain it better, split this. We are getting off tracked.

Only Zeusian fundamentalists think those things are literally true. Zeus uses the clouds and all the power of nature to make His lightning. Isn’t Zeus amazing?

There isn’t sufficient evidence to prove it. All you have is a belief. That’s fine, but it’s no different than a belief in Zeus, not really.

I’m sorry, I do what all the time? Disbelief in something is a belief in something? Faith in what, and how do you define faith? Naturally I hold a worldview that I think is the most valid and certain beliefs associated with it. But you’ve made a couple of assertions there that need explaining.

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Andrew, I can see that my style of argument antagonizes you, but I don’t argue this way for the sake of antagonizing you. I’m trying to be intellectually honest. This is another reason why I usually don’t touch religious debates with a 50’ pole.

The popular understanding of Christianity has changed over the centuries and is not unified today. You have your version, and that’s fine, but you would probably qualify as an “atheist” in Marlowe’s time for defying the church on certain points of dogma that experts had decided were indispensable.

we know Zeus isn’t throwing lighting because we are capable of reaching the atmosphere where lighting happens and we know the science of it. We can also find out if say Christianity is true is we have evidence of the the resurrection or the other way around because it’s the foundation of the religion.

Tempo has beaten me to it, but this is what I was going to write:

Any classical pagans or Neopagans who want to clarify the mysteries of Zeus & pals for us are most welcome. :slight_smile:

Did I ever say I’m speaking for all Christians? Did I ever say young earthers don’t exist? NO. I think you know that but like to throw the arguement off it’s tracks.

Well…

You mean it disproves young earth creationalism which is just a interpretation of the Bible that is not important to the foundation of Christianity at all?

That does seem a bit strong to me. Genesis isn’t important. It’s just the creation of the universe, nothing special. :idunno: My point being, it’s not important to you, but I think it is important to others.

I’m saying it’s not important to anything about the religion. If a person claims Jesus did not resurrect and it was metaphorical. Yeah, they are not Christians. That is the foundation of Christianity, that right there has no bend in interpretation.

I guess you’re not fond of one of the last remaining officially Christian countries in the world.

A quarter of people who describe themselves as Christians in Great Britain do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus, a survey commissioned by the BBC suggests.

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And let’s not even get started on Unitarians! :scream:

I can disagree with a Catholic on if he’s really eating the flesh of Jesus, but does it matter to Christianity. No, not really at the end.

It may matter to him, and you may want a DNA test for that flesh and blood, but whatever. I believe in live-and-let-live, as long as no-one blasphemes against Discobot. :slight_smile:

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My point is we are able to examine the validity of a claim. Do you find this false? Surely you don’t believe in a theistic god or any other religions world view based on examining the claims of that particular belief. That’s my point, I think you’re getting caught up in the theology of zueism which is not what You and I are debating.

I can see why you don’t think there is sufficient evidence. It’s something I also have a hard time with, and even harder time convincing an atheist of the evidence of the resurrection. But I’m not yet ina position to give you an articulate and well formed arguement for the resurrection in a way that’s not just jumbled. It’s a complex issue. But I’m unwilling to rule out the existence of life after death, and the universal redemption and the defeat of evil.

Atheism takes a lot of faith. As you know, we can’t prove that god doesn’t exist because we are finite. And Because basically you’ll have to be god to prove it. But does atheism not take a leap of faith saying there is no god? You can make a strong case of it, and maybe it does not have to be the Judeo Christian god. But it take a lot of faith, even arrogance to see the observable universe, the fact that we are even having this conversation, and that we can even imagine something outside of the prison of the material world and say this is it.

how do you prove this, and your God is Christ and the God created everything?

What is your definition of religion? For me, religion is just something to believe, no need of scientific proof as far as it doesn’t invade the field of science.

I’m not trying to disprove, Zeus. That’s not the purpose of the original statement you’ve been so caught up with. The point was tempo claimed there no way to say something is more valid, and I’m saying that’s not true. That’s all.

I don’t know if you’re purposely straw manning or not clear. I’m not saying genesis or creation is not important. I’m saying whether god created the universe in 7 earth days is not important.

This is rather an open ended question to a very complex answer that apologist have written thousands of books on. You can easily find writers like C.S. Lewis and such that can answer this. I’m not sure if you’re expecting a short paragraph answer to suffice here?

Philosophy, theology and science are all ways to discover truth. Absolutely faith in science has had very negative results, I think people forget that and uphold science as the only way to truth.

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but you reject other religions based on science…

Yeah, if a religion is true, it shouldn’t conflict with science. And I don’t just reject a religion based on science. I can reject it based on a variety of ways to test its validity.

Whether it conflicts with science is somehow objective, and there are many rooms of interpretation.

I don’t understand. I think we’ve have had a conversation on objective truth and you know my position on it.

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I think the point Tempo and I have been trying to make about paganism is that your criticism of it –

and

– is not well thought out, because (1) it presumes one fixed interpretation of paganism and one fixed interpretation of Christianity, whereas there are many interpretations of both, and (2) the same criticism works just as well against Christianity in general.

This does not mean (for me) that all religions are the same, but it does mean you need a better line of reasoning if you want to sound persuasive. :slight_smile:


The same basic idea can be applied here: I’m not saying lightning is not important. I’m saying whether or not Zeus anthropomorphically hurls lightning bolts is not important.

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Because it’s not well thought out. I’m simply saying validity of something can be proven. The way I criticize it is most likely wrong because I’m not trying to debate against it. Just saying it’s not impossible to find ways to test the validity of something. Ok?

That sounds logical, though I tend to think philosophical ideas don’t really get proven or disproven, just proven relevant or proven not-so-relevant.

For example, if Rowland says something philosophical like every human interaction is commerce

…and it turns out his archnemesis Charlie Marx said essentially the same thing (minus the part about leftists not acknowledging it) –

Labour-power, then, is a commodity, no more, no less so than is the sugar.

– does that prove Charlie right or Rollo wrong about the philosophical part? I think not. (For the record, I was disagreeing with Rollo about that, so I would also disagree with Charlie.)

When you say valid, in the context of a religious belief, it sounds like right as in right vs. wrong, not relevant as in this belief helps me understand things better and ultimately achieve a superior result in my life/work.

A belief may indeed be right and therefore valid. But how would you prove it scientifically?

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Charlie’s mistake was thinking he could change that fact.

Of course, but I also find the claims of Christianity false, including similarly fantastic claims. That’s my point. What’s the difference?

It’s something I also have a hard time with, and even harder time convincing an atheist of the evidence of the resurrection.

The evidence simply isn’t that strong. You have one vague account from a clearly biased source some 25 years after the fact, and then more specific accounts that start cropping up. Other early writings don’t mention it. I see this as something that has to be accepted as a belief. And, even if I were to accept that the resurrection did occur, its purpose, meaning etc. are unclear and raise more questions than they answer. More belief is required here.

But I’m not saying this is it. I don’t know what else there is. I believe there are other forces at work, but the nature of our reality is such that we can’t appraise them. In other words, I don’t know, you don’t know, and despite the considerable and varied efforts of people to make some sense of it, no one knows. A lot of questions have been answered through scientific inquiry based on empirical observation, but they’re just scratching the surface of the big questions, if even that.

I don’t think it requires faith for me not to believe things. You have this idea about a god which I have considered at some length and don’t believe. To me, that’s an adequate description of the situation. If we needed faith not to believe things, we’d have to have faith in all kinds of things, wouldn’t we?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that supernatural claims have a commonality to them. Some might be more believable than others, but you have to believe in the end. If you want to appeal to the supernatural, I think you have to recognize this.

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Supernatural is a word for things we don’t understand.

Superstition is just a word for things we assume science is capable of figuring out, given enough time and money.

The Pope isn’t that hard to figure out. He’s a guy whose been told way too many times that he’s a wise and good man who knows what’s best, so now he actually believes it. But the people telling him this are even stupider than he is.

That’s one thing it is, but it’s definitely more than that. There are natural phenomena that we don’t understand.

I don’t think so. He’s not some kind of dowager prince. He’s a Jesuit intellectual and administrator with a long and accomplished history, who like 5 years ago probably never seriously imagined he’d be the pope.

Good article on a subject that very little is written about, including the history of Christianity in China, the persecutions, and what is happening now.