What you don't seem to notice is I didn't encounter any info via research, so i didn't present any info as research. Make sense?
No. So you made a positive claim of fact which you didn't arrive at using information via research. That lets you off the hook for providing evidentiary support of your own fact-claim?
I'm sorry but that makes no sense whatsoever.
If you didn't encounter any info via research
where did you get the story of the Pygmy?
We're not talking about cold hard facts here
I'm sorry but I
was. I don't know why facts are anathema to religious and faith discussions. So I normally don't like to exclude them.
, but people. People with their own experiences and thoughts. I find it odd that you classify that as "hand waving," and fail to see the existence of people as factual.
What I classify as "handwaving" is that you fobbed me off to
someone else to find support
for your claim. Yes you gave me some names and an apocryphal story.
Ah, now we are back on track. Not so hard, eh?
I love patronizing people.
, and I am pointing out this is not what the word "knowledge" in the Bible refers to, AT ALL.
So "knowledge" from the Bible, a book, is not "book knowledge"? OK, got it!
Hope you are talking about "wisdom" here. I'll accept Wisdom has a variety of interpretations from the Bible, but "knowledge" seems to be a bit more set.
You have likely held them in your hand
not the Uranium mineral! I am not overly fond of the radioactive ores.
So you assume we "know" Christ via the Bible, and I point out we don't and can't.
Again, who is this "Christ" of whom you speak?
Where did that name come from? Where did the original stories of his exploits come from? Where did he write his teachings down?
"Knowing" salvation
builds off of the initial concept of Christ which comes exclusively from the Bible.
He has already told us it will not stand up in court so we shouldn't bring it there.
That's convenient. Actually I'm not being facetious here. I just find that when
anyone claims "hey this is all ultimate truth of the universe, but don't bother trying to prove it or support it with evidence. Sure you wouldn't do
anything else in life that way, this is different" I find it less that reassuring.
He has greatly classified the evidence
Why is it "classified"?
So you'll notice this thread is about evidence and I participate
But I'm not really sure why. You see I'm somewhat confused about that. You just got done doing pretty much everything to tell us why
in this special case, the most important aspect of existance in the universe, "evidence" should not be utilized.
If there's a God he made me wrong because I like evidence. It is a good thing.
In fact
there's only one maybe 2 reasons I can ever think of why anyone or anything would ever disallow evidence in support of something.
, and about challenge, which I do not participate in. Please compare this to the several forms of challenge you have issued me, (including implied) and notice I have plainly refused.
You most assuredly
did not refuse to provide me with "examples" of cases of extrabiblical knowledge of Christian salvation. You
did however refuse to support your claim with anything other than weak evidence, and even then you fiercely defended your "evidence" as evidence!
And when pressed, my answer does not change
Actually Raze, it
does change. I ask you to provide evidence for extrabiblical knowledge of Christian Soteriology, you provide the claim that this does exist and you then provide:
1. The apocryphal story of the pygmy of unknown time or place
2. The suggestion I talk to several people who will know better than you about your own claim
Then when I tell you this is hardly evidence and hardly
your defense of your own claim you tell me I am mistaken that it
is evidence. You have provided me leads for learning more on this.
Now you insist that evidence is not necessary for this general topic as regards knowledge of Jesus.
No, I don't pretend to understand the difference between you and I on this matter. It puzzles me, and when I see a potential explanation, I share that observation. This upsets you, much like we see Cain's reaction to his Brother.
Why do you assume I'm "upset"? Because I don't just accept your statements? That seems to upset you far more! You seem extremely defensive about your "evidence" earlier stated. You seem defensive when I point out that I will (and did) have to do the actual "leg work" to support
your claim for you.
I am not particularly upset. I have merely just pointed out to you the
history of the faith.
So progress can be made. It begins with recognizing that like I am in no position to argue with you over minerals, you are in no position to argue with me over the Kingdom.
I am in more of a position to argue with you over faith than you are to argue with me about minerals. You know why?
Because I've studied faith, I was a believer at one time and I have spent a significant amount of time thinking and studying the concepts
Clearly you and I wind up on different sides, but please do not for one second think I'm wholly ignorant of things of faith. You would be immensely wrong.
Most posters on CF consider it quackery, and would like to see it all disposed of.
Really? Was Paul in error having a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus?
Where do you draw the line? Visions are visions.
You choosing not to go the quick and easy route doesn't give you valid reason to say I make things hard on you.
Yes it does. If
you make a claim it is incumbent upon you to support it. What you did was told me to go talk to someone else and then gave me an apocryphal story with almost nothing in detail.
In any event don't go thinking I expected you to "buy it because you read it somewhere."
Then why did you even respond?
The Bible is one means of introducing God's ideas into our minds. There are many others, but personally I do feel the Bible is the best avenue.
Here's another
implied claim by you. I don't expect you'll back it up any moreso than others. You say the Bible is the "best" avenue to know God's ideas.
So let's keep it all focused on the
very specific route of salvation as explained in Christianity.
It means that one accepts as their personal lord and savior a specific person named Jesus Christ who was God as one member of a TRINITY. That this specific person, Jesus Christ, died for our sins and that all we need do is freely accept God's grace.
That is very specific. Do Buddhists get to go to Christian Heaven? Do Zoroastrians? Do Wiccans?
Yet what good is it until Scripture "comes alive" in you? I expect you can't answer the question, because it is nonsensical to you
It doesn't really relate to the questions I've been asking. You are talking in "sermon talk" about a secondary concept. In order to know about the spirit of Jesus working wonders in your soul you have to first know that Jesus even exists!
But you tell me that there
is some way to know about Jesus without explicit reference to the Bible.
Now you could wax philosophical and talk about knowing spiritual truths and beauty and wonder and love of some unnamed being out in the cosmos surrounding you, yadda yadda yadda. But that's like saying "I know that this bath is soothing ergo I know the joys of the spirit which must mean Jesus is the person who died for my sins and is my personal lord and savior!"
So I'm positing that the Bible alone is not the gateway; there must be something more, otherwise we cannot account for this difference. What makes it "come alive?"
"Come alive" is completely separable for learning what has to "come alive" in the first place.
"Soteriology" is expressed throughout the Bible, not particularly advanced by the Gospels, and by no means invented by Paul. King David might as well be considered the greatest theologian on the subject ever, while he was still a shepherd:
"The Lord leads me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake." Period!
So at the time of David, did the Jewish faith have the concept of an "afterlife"? Did they believe in Heaven and Hell as later outlined in the New Testament. And how, exactly does this quote attributed to David show you that one must personally accept Jesus Christ as lord and savior and that he came to earth
well after this biblical quote and died for the sins of all mankind? Was not ritual sacrifice
still being practiced at the Temple at the time of this writing? Why would there need to have been the sacrifice of Jesus at the time of David's writing if sacrifice was already being done in the Temple to please God?
You see, Raze, it's the
details of the conversation I'm tracking on here, not the nice "sermon verbiage".
Yes I understand your overarching meaning which doesn't necessarily get to the technical details of my question.
Everything else just helps our human weaknesses accept that simple yet bold Truth
Well, indeed, that is important to know but one must know
more to achieve salvation in Christianity. Just trusting God per se is extremely important and accepting his "Grace" but there's that whole other bit about accepting a specific person in the form of Jesus Christ as savior who died on the cross for our sins and was resurrected and ascended into heaven.
, but nothing else qualifies it further, adds to it, or changes anything. THAT is Salvation
Errrrmmmmm, umm, that sounds a bit heretical. According to most Christian doctrine that I am aware of salvation requires that one accept:
Jesus as lord and savior
That his sacrifice on the cross was sufficient payment for mankinds sins
That salvation is not earned but given by God's grace
While indeed the Davidic quote you provide would cover at least part of the first and possibly the last (God is Lord and to be trusted) depending on how one reads and interpolates the meaning, but I am uncertain how one derives
Christian salvation
from a Jewish king predating the manifestation of the Trinity who clearly stated: Jn 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
, in all it's theological terms, and I really don't think you can get any Christian of any flavor to say otherwise.
So you can find Christians who think the Davidic quote there is
sufficient to Christian salvation? And that without any further information that salvation, is possible?
Where all the disagreement comes in is, "how do we do that?" Hopefully you perceive my intentional use of irony, that this is not something WE do.
Well the details are somewhat important, yes.
I think our species has the idea of a Savior, from sources outside the Judeo-Christian traditions
Oh indeed! There are even religions
predating Christianity that have many parallels with Christianity. Mithraism etc. In fact it was such an issue in the early Church that, as you no doubt know, Tertullian in the second and third century AD came up with the concept of
diabolical mimicry to explain why some Christian concepts were "anticipated" in pagan religions predating Christianity.
But deeper than that you are correct: it not surprising that humans, self-aware of their flaws and failings would indeed understand the need for "salvation", maybe not in the "go to Heaven and enjoy a wonderful afterlife" type salvation but more the general idea of all of us are weak and prone to doing harm to others, and this is our attempt to "atone" with our better nature and other humans.
That I can fully understand. But since that isn't the specific Christian Soteriology it is insufficient. Perhaps a
necessary first step but insufficient.
Are you getting the idea that most of the bickering amongst Christians about "soteriology" is way off base at best, and most likely sin?
No, I think it is merely humans attempting to understand something that has no actual "evidentiary" support or that
cannot be derived from multiple lines of independent evidence rendering it a "thought experiment" taken on by countless thousands over the years.
That's why we have so many different religions, and so many different versions of Christianity.
If Christian dogma were derivable from something other than
one book
coupled with pure speculation then it might converge on one single detailed explanation.
Classic and scholastic does not agree with the values extolled in Scripture.
And in a sense I think that's sad. Today's Christians seem to work really hard to get as far away from logic and philosophy and robustness of thought as they can. It's a sad loss (imho) for the faith that there are no "doctors" of faith whose work can be debated as philosophy using logic anymore.
Wow you've devoted a lot of time and attention to a very simple point! You would pursue this because you want to know.
Ahh, again, you don't really understand me. One of my closest friends in college is now a philosophy professor (he specializes in medieval philosophy and is heading up the philosophy of religion area in the department he works in. He's a Christian with a lot of theological background. When we were roommates in college we'd debate for hours over just
anything. Hours. Over meaningless points of order.
I can do this all day!
You are being equally silly here, by pretending to know more about "the Faith I follow" than I do.
I stand corrected. I am hopeful that my years of study have put in a position to know a great deal about
Christianity as opposed to whatever specific faith you are.
The church today is largely apostate. The path followed to get there doesn't particularly interest me, no.
Well, how do you know it is "apostate"? That sounds like you have an orthodoxy of your own. In this case if it is sui generis to you how do you know it is not
heterodoxical?
