Canons of St Paul's

[vinteuil]

Oh , that's a surprise
I was always under the impression that Christianity included the Old Testament ?
obviously not so i'm just off to snack on a Buzzard !

... for them as is innarested in such - yes the 'Old Testament' is deemed to be included in Christianity; the movement that tried to exclude the Old Testament is known as Marcionism and is a heresy -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism

[vinteuil]

I see the Dean of St Paul's, The Rt Rev Graeme Knowles, has said that his position is no longer tenable and that he resigns...

[french frank]

I see the Dean of St Paul's, The Rt Rev Graeme Knowles, has said that his position is no longer tenable and that he resigns...

So that's Fraser and Knowles. Where does that leave matters? Who's winning?

[amateur51]

Depends which mutation of Christianity you go for. They're all true, of course. Why do I say that? Because they've all told me so. On this truth doth faith thereby hang.

Oh S_A, that's cheered me up no end Ta everso

[Simon]

Depends which mutation of Christianity you go for. They're all true, of course. Why do I say that? Because they've all told me so. On this truth doth faith thereby hang.

You know, sometimes you realise that the minds you are dealing with are so closed that it's just not worth explaining. But as this is an easy one, it might just get through.

The teaching of Christ, though it included many other wise precepts along the way such as not "casting the first stone" etc., boils down to two major requirements: 1: love God and 2: love other people. Neither of these is easy and all those who profess to follow Christ will fail at times - often at many times. But if one tries, and succeeds sometimes, it's a result, I suppose.

Now, we can argue forever about aspects of religion and belief and knowledge and rationality - but we can't justifiably say that Christ threatened anybody with "hell fire and damnation". All kinds of people have come along in the past 2000 years and muddied the water with all kinds of dogma, ideas, half-truths and (mis) interpretations, some due to ignorance, some deliberate to enhance their own power, and some of these certainly included ideas of hellfire and damnation - but that has nothing to do with the Christianity expressed by its founder and therefore nothing to do with real Christianity, and the central incontrovertible "truth" remains exactly as I stated it.

-=-=-=-

As to the "point" that SA thought he was being clever in making, I'm afraid it fails in terms of logic. (Like so many of SA's points!) For just because several people state different things about the same subject doesn't make them all false. They may all be false, but could well be accurate and the others mistaken.

[John Skelton]

The teaching of Christ, though it included many other wise precepts along the way such as not "casting the first stone" etc., boils down to two major requirements: 1: love God and 2: love other people.

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." Matthew 10:34 - 36

[vinteuil]

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26

"Think not that I came to bring peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34

[EDIT John Skelton - we think alike! - I cross-posted... ]

[John Skelton]

we can't justifiably say that Christ threatened anybody with "hell fire and damnation".

"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." John 15:6

[Serial_Apologist]

True love can only come about spontaneously. You can't "make" me love Bruckner, any more than I can "make" you love Birtwistle, Simon. To order someone to love - as opposed, more reasonably, to respect another - is either tantamount to commanding spontaneity from them, or the pretense of spontaneity. In either case that is unreasonable, especially in the case of the objective of that love being hypothetical, and especially if it be in anthropomorphised form. To go along with such an expectation is the very defnintion of "bad faith". Either one is expected to love that which cannot be known - as the Bible often states - which is to demand the impossible; or else one is called on to be insincere - to the person one is trying to convince ("God", another Christian, or the community at large), or oneself.

As to the "point" that SA thought he was being clever in making, I'm afraid it fails in terms of logic. (Like so many of SA's points!) For just because several people state different things about the same subject doesn't make them all false. They may all be false, but could well be accurate and the others mistaken.

By the same token, just because several people state different things about the same subject doesn't make them all true either. They can't ALL be accurate, even if others are mistaken.

[Serial_Apologist]

Someone said, earlier on, "The Canon's just fired itself"

[Anna]

[Serial_Apologist]

So, He's turned up! About time too!

[Anna]

So, He's turned up! About time too!

Well, it was about time the Canons called in their Superior!

[MrGongGong]

The teaching of Christ, though it included many other wise precepts along the way such as not "casting the first stone" etc., boils down to two major requirements: 1: love God and 2: love other people.

Which in YOUR interpretation seems to make it ok to sell weapons to dodgy dictators
and sometimes love people so much that you kill them

no wonder the church is in such a mess over something so simple

The basic teaching of Christ is that you DON'T KILL PEOPLE ............. not that , "well its in our interests to rub out a few baddies from time to time"

I wish some would own up to their hypocrisy

[Simon]

True love can only come about spontaneously. You can't "make" me love Bruckner, any more than I can "make" you love Birtwistle, Simon. To order someone to love - as opposed, more reasonably, to respect another - is either tantamount to commanding spontaneity from them, or the pretense of spontaneity. In either case that is unreasonable, especially in the case of the objective of that love being hypothetical, and especially if it be in anthropomorphised form. To go along with such an expectation is the very defnintion of "bad faith". Either one is expected to love that which cannot be known - as the Bible often states - which is to demand the impossible; or else one is called on to be insincere - to the person one is trying to convince ("God", another Christian, or the community at large), or oneself. :

No, I agree, people can't be MADE to love - but none of Christ's ideas force anyone to do anything as a great glory of the phoilosophy of Christianity is that it offers free will. We are not ants nor preprogrammed robots. But I don't accept that love can only be spontaneous. Christ asks us to (try to) love others, i.e., as you imply, to treat them in the right way, as we would wish to be treated ourselves. It's hard, sometimes. But with the will it can be done sometimes, even by we humans.

By the same token, just because several people state different things about the same subject doesn't make them all true either. They can't ALL be accurate, even if others are mistaken.

True: sorry about the error in the earlier post, which led understandably to your response - I meant to write "they may be all false, but ONE could be accurate and the others mistaken", which is logical. As you were.

=-=-=

As for the quotes by others, the thinking behind what He was teaching is the important idea - don't take it too literally!

However, though it's true that Jesus did not preach no consequences at all for evil acts, his main thrust was that all acts could be forgiven if sincerely repented and that God desires everyone to come to him through living a life as taught by Christ.

The idea of Hell and damnation is not, I repeat, an idea from Christ, but an adjunct by "the Church" later on - probably largely to increase its own power and wealth through the selling of so-called "pardons" - truly despicable behaviour - and to enthral superstitious masses in fear.