The No true Scotsman Fallacy

[Ironhold]

Last I checked, accepting creeds is not a requirement for salvation.

Then why do people hold it against the LDS faith that it rejects the creeds?

 

[MoreCoffee]

In Rabbinic Judaism isn't the Talmud the heart of the religion and the Torah something that cannot be obeyed anyway because there is no temple any more and no animal sacrifices and no priesthood offering sacrifices to YHWH? Isn't the religion more about the traditions of the seventy elders than anything else?

Simple answer is no.

Is your answer given from the Orthodox Jewish perspective or from Reformed Judaism or from Liberal Judaism or something else?

 

[Hammster]

Then why do people hold it against the LDS faith that it rejects the creeds?

I don't. Belief in the Creeds doesn't save anyone. Even the demons believe.

One must be born again.

 

[LoAmmi]

Is your answer given from the Orthodox Jewish perspective or from Reformed Judaism or from Liberal Judaism or something else?

I do my best to give what would be considered the Orthodox position. The concepts in the Talmud are usually more of a how-to guide for keeping the Torah going over examples and extremes. There are laws in the Torah that are unclear and it we would all be running off doing our own thing if not for guidance. We see this as something Moses saw when he setup courts to rule on questions brought before them.

There are parts of the Torah we can't keep currently, but Daniel was equally unable to keep the same parts. The Babylonian Exile showed that one can still remain consistent to the religion while being unable to do everything.

 

[Ironhold]

I don't. Belief in the Creeds doesn't save anyone. Even the demons believe.

One must be born again.

Well, we fit the bill as Christians then since one must believe and be baptized to become a member.

 

[Hammster]

Well, we fit the bill as Christians then since one must believe and be baptized to become a member.

Nope. You are not born again. You don't have the right Jesus.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I do my best to give what would be considered the Orthodox position. The concepts in the Talmud are usually more of a how-to guide for keeping the Torah going over examples and extremes. There are laws in the Torah that are unclear and it we would all be running off doing our own thing if not for guidance. We see this as something Moses saw when he setup courts to rule on questions brought before them.

There are parts of the Torah we can't keep currently, but Daniel was equally unable to keep the same parts. The Babylonian Exile showed that one can still remain consistent to the religion while being unable to do everything.

But how can one keep Torah if one has no temple in Jerusalem to worship in, no priests to offer sacrifices, no sacrifices for sins and for feasts and for the day of atonement? Surely the keeping cannot be keeping Torah but rather keeping something else that may be a subset of Torah or may be something not in Torah at all.

 

[LoAmmi]

But how can one keep Torah if one has no temple in Jerusalem to worship in, no priests to offer sacrifices, no sacrifices for sins and for feasts and for the day of atonement? Surely the keeping cannot be keeping Torah but rather keeping something else that may be a subset of Torah or may be something not in Torah at all.

Daniel didn't have a Temple to worship in or sacrifices. HaShem didn't seem to think he was doing anything wrong. Like Daniel, I have no Temple so I do that which I can. There is more to the Torah than sacrifices and more ways to be forgiven for sins than sacrifices. David was forgiven by Nathan for repentance and Hosea stated we would live for many days without sacrifices. Hosea also said that the prayers of our lips would be our sacrifices. We live in those days.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Daniel didn't have a Temple to worship in or sacrifices. HaShem didn't seem to think he was doing anything wrong. Like Daniel, I have no Temple so I do that which I can. There is more to the Torah than sacrifices and more ways to be forgiven for sins than sacrifices. David was forgiven by Nathan for repentance and Hosea stated we would live for many days without sacrifices. Hosea also said that the prayers of our lips would be our sacrifices. We live in those days.

I see, so it is a subset of Torah that is kept? Or is something in addition to Torah also kept?

 

[LoAmmi]

I see, so it is a subset of Torah that is kept? Or is something in addition to Torah also kept?

One keeps as much of the Torah as possible. There are traditions that have been put in place, such as the head covering, that we follow as it is traditional to do so. But those traditions even vary among groups.

Something to remember is that nobody can keep all of the Torah to begin with. Nobody is both man and woman, for example. So, even if the Temple stood, you can only keep as much as applies to you.

 

[bhsmte]

That's what scripture says. So, yes.

Indeed. If a person subscribes to literal interpretations, I would think they may get dizzy dealing with the contradictions.

 

[dzheremi]

I've written a bit about this silliness recently in a post you liked, if I'm not mistaken, Red Fox. So you probably know where I stand.

But as to the question of how do you know if a person is a Christian (I'll leave out "true", because that is kind of meaningless since it is so subjective), for the Orthodox Church of which I am a part (and I have to imagine for the Roman Catholic Church, as well, though they also have additional standards via other creeds that we don't use), that determination is made for us already via the Nicene Creed. In fact, it is Coptic tradition that said Creed was written by our 20th Patriarch, HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic (296-373), at the Council of Nicaea. Other churches of our communion use words that are very similar to it but differ slightly, such as the Armenians, whose version of the Creed is ultimately probably descended to the slightly expanded version of St. Epiphanius of Salamis (310-403), which is kind of "in the middle" between the wording of the 325 creed and the expansions authorized at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 (to emphasize the divinity of the Holy Spirit against the heretical Pneumatomachoi). This version of 381 is the "final" version used by the Orthodox (except, again, for the Armenians, since their version of it was penned between 325 and 381), while the Latin Christians who would become the Roman Catholic Church following the East-West Schism of 1054 added the unacceptable phrase "filioque" ("and through the Son" in Latin) to the clause one the procession of the Holy Spirit at a council in Toledo, Spain in 589, presumably as a bulwark against Arianism, which was the faith of the then-newly vanquished Visigoths who had ruled Spain for some time at that point.

So it's actually quite easy, in that they will either recite the Nicene Creed (though of course who knows how many professed Christians may do so without believing it; no one can really know that), or find some sort of problem with it or otherwise follow some other statement of belief more in keeping with their own. It is worth noting, however, that there are no 'morality clauses' in it, so we can and do say that there are certainly plenty of bad people who do qualify as Christians under this standard. Heck, there are instances of explicit racism recorded in the context of the sayings of the Desert Fathers (not the sayings themselves, but to describe what brought them about), particularly as recorded in the sayings of St. Moses the Black, also known as St. Moses the Ethiopian. There they may serve as a rhetorical device (which would not prevent them from also being a true record of what was actually said), because they generally follow the pattern of the other monks saying something racist to St. Moses and St. Moses turning it around on them and shaming them with their own words by showing how much more closely he is following the example of Christ by bearing their insults than they are by hurling the insults in the first place. Maybe an obvious point today, but apparently not so in earlier centuries when the sayings were first recorded and eventually brought to Europe from Latin pilgrims c. 5th century. And as we can see from the history of European colonialism under European church patronage, they did not keep the lessons so well, much to the great shame of all Christians everywhere.

So I would concur with what others have said in the this thread that the behavior of Christians does not make them suddenly some other kind of thing. Heck, you could murder someone while reciting the Nicene Creed and you'd still be a Christian -- a Christian murderer, but a Christian nonetheless. It's not that belief and actions are completely separated (of course not!), but that if Christianity is an actual belief system and not simply a moral code of conduct (and this is a good distinction to make, as many have pointed out rightly that non-Christians and people of no religion are often much more 'moral' than self-professed Christians), then the most we can say is that there are actions that should and actions that shouldn't follow from the Christian who lives according to their belief (and this is where, for the traditional churches, we have the Didache, the various Councils, the canons, the Early Church Fathers, and all these other sources that illuminate how Christian life is to be lived). But simply being a terrible human being while being a Christian does not magically change your beliefs to the point where they would not be recognizably Christian -- it just makes you personally a terrible human being to the point where I am ashamed to be associated with you via our common religion, which is I'm sure how many Christians feel about self-proclaimed Christian hate groups like the KKK, the various other sleazebags in the "Christian Identity" movement, etc. By the same token, I'm sure many Muslims feel the same sense of revulsion and shame regarding Al-Qaeda, Daesh/ISIS, the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia, and other extreme interpretations of Islam. That doesn't make them interpretations of anything other than Islam, though. It's still in some sense Islam, even if it's not a kind that most Muslims like (thank God). They don't suddenly become Episcopalians or Buddhists or something by their actions, so long as those actions are backed up by some particular interpretation of Islam. (Here I'm stopping short of saying they aren't "true" Muslims, because as a non-Muslim that's not my call to make, and also because for all I know there are various ways by which at least individual Muslims may be "excommunicated" from Islam, though as I understand it the authorities in Islam are relatively diffuse, so there would likewise probably be nothing to stop these disavowed people/groups from just hand-picking scholars who support their wicked actions; I know, for instance, that ISIS does have scholars attached to it who attempt to legitimize ISIS' actions and interpretations of Islamic law, though I have no idea how much weight the resulting rulings would have. The point is that simply saying "that is not true ____/those people are not true ____s" doesn't usually stand up to scrutiny, no matter what you fill in the blanks with. No religious tradition is self-interpreting.)

 

[Hammster]

Indeed. If a person subscribes to literal interpretations, I would think they may get dizzy dealing with the contradictions.

There are no contradictions. Do not try to lead people astray.

 

[bhsmte]

Wrong.

1. Must be born again.

Anything after that is evidence of 1..

Could you be specific on the requirement of being "born again"? And, how did come to conclude these specific requirements?

 

[Ironhold]

Nope. You are not born again. You don't have the right Jesus.

Then how is yours the "right" one?

 

[Hammster]

Could you be specific on the requirement of being "born again"? And, how did come to conclude these specific requirements?

John chapter 3. Jesus concluded them.

 

[Hammster]

Then how is yours the "right" one?

He's the one revealed in scripture. Not the Mormon aberration.

 

[bhsmte]

There are no contradictions. Do not try to lead people astray.

I am entitled to state an observation of scripture as you are and you are free to disagree.

Many Christians I have known, acknowledge contradictions and they have figured out a way to reconcile them while still having faith. Others have more trouble reconciling contradictions and either deny they exist or the source loses credibility.

So, at the end of the day, I'm sure you have no issue with people deciding for themselves, whether these contradictions exist or not.

 

[Ironhold]

He's the one revealed in scripture.

And your proof is?

edit -

Before you start criticizing us for what you see as our perceived failings, you should really examine your own position. I've dealt with too many would-be "heroes of Christianity" who were destroyed as people because they tried to defend a faith that they didn't understand. Once the questions started coming back their way, they couldn't respond and so began to freak out.

 

[Hammster]

I am entitled to state an observation of scripture as you are and you are free to disagree.

Many Christians I have known, acknowledge contradictions and they have figured out a way to reconcile them while still having faith. Others have more trouble reconciling contradictions and either deny they exist or the source loses credibility.

So, at the end of the day, I'm sure you have no issue with people deciding for themselves, whether these contradictions exist or not.

There are no contradictions.