What is Christianity?

[Oxyaena]

The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.

[reposted from a post of mine on a BBS.]

[broger...@gmail.com]

The question is, "what do you want to call Christianity?" It's just about how you decide to use the word. As long as you can explain the Mormon or Muslim or Unitarian position on Jesus accurately, it's just a question of word usage whether you include them in "Christian" or not.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Wednesday, December 8, 2021 at 8:20:23 PM UTC-5, Oxyaena wrote:

Some try to argue that it is belief consistent with the Nicene Creed that
qualifies one to be a Christian. Of course, the nature of things is that
many of nevertheless believe themselves to be Christians take issue
with certain aspects of the Nicene Creed. Of course, you probably want
to review the existence of schisms going back to Docetian views. You might
find it fun to look up Sethians and then follow various leads. And of course
one simply can't help but toss in a joke here.

https://youtu.be/l3fAcxcxoZ8https://youtu.be/l3fAcxcxoZ8
Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region ...

[Oxyaena]

On 12/8/2021 10:43 PM, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 8, 2021 at 8:20:23 PM UTC-5, Oxyaena wrote:
>> The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
>> could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
>> Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
>> It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
>> Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
>> Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
>> figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
>> as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
>>
>> [reposted from a post of mine on a BBS.]
>
> Some try to argue that it is belief consistent with the Nicene Creed that
> qualifies one to be a Christian.

That definition is fine and dandy, but the Nicene Creed post-dates the
genesis of Christianity by several centuries, so what definition should
we use to cover the period in-between the genesis of Christianity and
the convening of the Council of Nicaea? We could use Pauline
Christianity, but Paul is a distinct figure from Christ, with distinct
teachings (as far as we can tell what the teachings of Christ actually
were) from Christ. I'd argue the only reason Pauline Christianity is
predominant today as opposed to Jewish Christianity and Gnosticism is
because Pauline Christianity just so happened to be the movement that
took root in Rome. The only thing Gnosticism, Jewish Christianity, and
Pauline Christianity all have in common is that their beliefs center
around the Christ figure.

[Burkhard]

You could argue the same for "dog" that covers Chihuahuas and Great
Danes, or for that matter "the" theory of evolution (or any scientific
theory). They are all "genetic" in the sense that there is a common
ancestor from which they evolved. As with all things that evolve, it can
be difficult to determine if speciation has occurred, and things get
fuzzy in the margins.

One way to think about the different Christian creeds might be like a
ring species. Orthodox Mormons are non-trinitarians, so reject the
apostolic creed, but the Community of Christ variety of
Mormonism is Trinitarian. And some protestant churches whose baptism is
recognized by mainstream christian churches also recognize Mormon
baptism. By contrast, Islam is outside this ring, notwithstanding that
Islam and Christianity have Judaism as Last common ancestor.

[mig själv]

Every christian has their own version of christianity so christianity is billions of diffrent religions.
Few christians has read the entire Bible
Most christians ignore most of Bible.

[broger...@gmail.com]

I'd say you could try something like this "A religion is Christian if there is no person more central to it's belief system than Jesus." That would exclude Islam and other religions that include Jesus as one of many prophets. It would include Mormons, since Joseph Smith is not more central than Jesus, and it would include various non-Trinitarian and otherwise "heretical" forms of Christianity which still place Jesus at the center of things.

[Zen Cycle]

Emo's best work...

[jillery]

On Thu, 9 Dec 2021 01:38:56 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Your comments above make an excellent historical point which most
Christians conveniently forget. IMO the Islamic Expansion during the
Middle Ages did more to establish the dominance of Pauline
Christianity than did the Council of Nicea, or any other action before
or since, by destroying and/or suppressing non-Pauline churches in
North Africa and the Middle East.

>> Of course, the nature of things is that
>> many of nevertheless believe themselves to be Christians take issue
>> with certain aspects of the Nicene Creed. Of course, you probably want
>> to review the existence of schisms going back to Docetian views. You might
>> find it fun to look up Sethians and then follow various leads. And of course
>> one simply can't help but toss in a joke here.
>>
>> https://youtu.be/l3fAcxcxoZ8https://youtu.be/l3fAcxcxoZ8
>> Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region ...
>>

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[Kalkidas]

It's the path of logos.

[Oxyaena]

I've had it suggested to me before that Islam was introduced as a
compromise of sorts between Arab Jews and Christians, you can see this
with the sort of middle ground Islam takes on many issues, with Judaism
and Christianity representing extremes. Breadtuber Viki1999 posits this
exact point in their video "Learning about Judeo-Christian Values:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq17Cs7BwdA

I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Oxyaena]

I should clarify: Viki1999 points out that Islam takes a middle ground
of sorts between Christianity and Judaism on many issues, not that Islam
was introduced as a fundamental compromise between Arab Judaism and Arab
Christianity.

[jillery]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2021 07:53:14 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Assuming your "your" is the inclusive form, my impression is Islam
takes a middle ground only wrt the nature of Jesus, to be similar to
Mohammad, in that Jesus was an earlier prophet aka messenger of the
Book but not the Son or Spirit of God. So that's contrary to Pauline
doctrine and similar to Unitarianism.

However, in most respects, Islamic traditions and doctrines are quite
similar to Judaism, especially Orthodox Judaism, ex. circumcision,
separation of the sexes, so in that sense both are very much Semitic
religions, while Christianity has largely exapted Roman traditions
lacking in both Islam and Judaism.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> Oxyaena wrote:
>> The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
>> could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
>> Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
>> It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
>> Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
>> Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
>> figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
>> as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
>>
>> [reposted from a post of mine on a BBS.]
>>
> You could argue the same for "dog" that covers Chihuahuas and Great
> Danes, or for that matter "the" theory of evolution (or any scientific
> theory). They are all "genetic" in the sense that there is a common
> ancestor from which they evolved. As with all things that evolve, it can
> be difficult to determine if speciation has occurred, and things get
> fuzzy in the margins.
>

Dogs and bears are close but don’t do the nasty. Wolves and coyotes might
do the nasty (see coywolves and perhaps red wolves). Red wolves may be
fuzzy in the margins too.

>
> One way to think about the different Christian creeds might be like a
> ring species. Orthodox Mormons are non-trinitarians, so reject the
> apostolic creed, but the Community of Christ variety of
> Mormonism is Trinitarian. And some protestant churches whose baptism is
> recognized by mainstream christian churches also recognize Mormon
> baptism. By contrast, Islam is outside this ring, notwithstanding that
> Islam and Christianity have Judaism as Last common ancestor.
>

Actually your dog comparison may be doing more heavy lifting than you
realize. Sure what we see as breeds, especially chihuahua and great danes
are sorta surrogates for incipient species. And the branching radiation of
faiths seem similar here. We have the Abramic cluster of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. Somewhere in the back is Zoroastrianism. We have
the Dharmic cluster of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and later Sikhism.

Fine. But the similarity with dog breeds gets interesting since religions
are either mutts or designer breeds (labradoodles). From my understanding
toy breeds have some chihuahua in them. Christianities are often a result
of lateral transfer or mixing. In Cuba for instance there are Africanized
versions of Lazarus. In Europe pagan traditions got hybridized into
Christianity too. The Cathars and Bogomils were distantly influenced by
some Iranian heresy.

Islam inherited Arabian pagan beliefs as it also came to terms with
characters such as Musa and Isa. I’m not even going to get into whatever it
is that became Druze beliefs. Sufism may too have a hybrid nature.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:17:08 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Seems pretty simple to me. A Christian is someone who believes in the
divinity of Christ and tries to follow his teachings. Moslems do not
accept his divinity and I don't think Mormons believe Joseph Smith was
divine.

[Burkhard]

Martin Harran wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:17:08 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
>> could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
>> Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
>> It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
>> Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
>> Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
>> figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
>> as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
>>
>
>
> Seems pretty simple to me. A Christian is someone who believes in the
> divinity of Christ

Ahhh, but would that rule out adoptionists? Some of them, or all of
them? What about arianism? Sure, all ruled heretic by the early church,
but for the purpose of Oxyaena's question, that does not bind us of course

[Glenn]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Thomas_Jefferson

Apparently Martin would deny Jefferson's claim of being a Christian.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 09:43:39 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:17:08 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
>>> could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
>>> Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
>>> It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
>>> Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
>>> Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
>>> figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
>>> as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Seems pretty simple to me. A Christian is someone who believes in the
>> divinity of Christ
>
>Ahhh, but would that rule out adoptionists? Some of them, or all of
>them? What about arianism? Sure, all ruled heretic by the early church,

They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted
authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair
enough with me. I see an analogy here with science and ID. Proponents
of ID like to make out that they are doing science but the
overwhelming consensus among practising scientists is that ID doesn't
even come close to being science and that conclusion is accepted among
the scientific community at large.

Anyone can call themselves Christian or any other designation, but
unless that is accepted by the majority of those actually involved in
the particular activity, then the self-designation is meaningless.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 08:21:17 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

"Jefferson was most comfortable with Deism, rational religion,
Theistic rationalism, and Unitarianism.[3] He was sympathetic to and
in general agreement with the moral precepts of Christianity.[4]"

This is just the latest in a long-running series of cites posted by
you which state the opposite of what you seem to think they state. I
can't figure out whether you just don't bother reading the things you
cite or whether you suffer from sort of comprehension deficit.

Then again, I could be wrong, maybe you're not disagreeing with what
the article says, it might be it might just be your total inability to
clearly express your own arguments.

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 3:45:24 AM UTC-5, martin...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 09:43:39 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
> wrote:
> >Martin Harran wrote:
> >> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:17:08 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
> >>> could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
> >>> Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
> >>> It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
> >>> Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
> >>> Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
> >>> figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
> >>> as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> Seems pretty simple to me. A Christian is someone who believes in the
> >> divinity of Christ
> >
> >Ahhh, but would that rule out adoptionists? Some of them, or all of
> >them? What about arianism? Sure, all ruled heretic by the early church,
> They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted
> authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair
> enough with me.

The winners write the history.

>I see an analogy here with science and ID. Proponents
> of ID like to make out that they are doing science but the
> overwhelming consensus among practising scientists is that ID doesn't
> even come close to being science and that conclusion is accepted among
> the scientific community at large.
>
> Anyone can call themselves Christian or any other designation, but
> unless that is accepted by the majority of those actually involved in
> the particular activity, then the self-designation is meaningless.
> >but for the purpose of Oxyaena's question, that does not bind us of course

Catholics are a minority among Christians. So far it's only a fraction of the Protestants who deny that Catholics are Christians, but if it became a majority, would Catholics then no longer be Christian?

[Glenn]

Nothing but insults here, except for the quote. Here's another: "consistently referred to himself as a Christian".

[Burkhard]

Couple of problems with that I'd say. The first is a rather
counterintuitive (to say the least) outcome. You include Mormonism
(doubly odd as they have an adaptionist bend) within the Christian
label, but you exclude the ebonites, thinkers such as Theodotus,
Elipandus of Toledo (an archbishop in the church)or bishop Felix of
Urgel, and quite possibly Peter Abelard and Duns Scotus. All of these
groups and thinkers, from early Christianity to the scholastics. By any
meaningful measure, they are much closer to mainstream Christianity than
Mormonism, with disagreements about something that for most people is a
rather abstract theological point.

Indeed, if Bart Ehrmans "evolutionary" theory holds, then the early
Church, possibly for the first 150 years at least, was predominantly or
exclusively adoptionist (what he calls "low Christology), "high
Christiology" the later invention.

So if one follwoed your argument to its logical conclusion, then there
were no Christians until around 150AD, but Mormons are Christians, and I
just don't think that makes sense.

The second is the argument from authority, which I think does not hold
on historical grounds, and the analogy fails on systematic grounds. The
decision to declare Arianism a heresy was not the result of a
quasi-scientific inquiry or a reasoned debate, nor was it a decision by
"the duly constituted authorities - in fact the very concept of
authority only came about as a result of this conflict. It was a power
ploy where an ad-hoc coalition of smaller groups managed to align
themselves with the pagan authorities - at least partially due to the
fact that the Arians had their main followship among the unruly Visogoth
in Spain. And even then the victory was far from complete, and right to
the 7th century, Lombards Goths and Vandals were predominately Arians
(and largely left in peace, also because Constantine II had been Arian)
You'd be hard pressed to find any objective criterion why they were not
just wrong, but so wrong to not count as Christians at all.

And that, apart from the ahistoricity, is the other reason the analogy
does not work. For the science label, it wither becomes a sociological
question of observing what scientists do - and there numbers matter, but
you don;t have them with these religions disputes, or there is some
"fact of the matter", some external criterion that gives us good reasons
to put the label "science" on one activity not the other. I don't see
what the equivalent in this theological dispute would be,

as for the argument by number, and the argument by "officially declared
heresy" - well, that would rule out Protestants. Or Catholics. At least
for most of their respective histories. Again not a position that looks
defensible to me.

Sure, the label "Christian"" must have some meaning beyond mere
self-declaration. I offered a "genetic" one: evolved from the early
Christian communities. That avoids most of these issues, and for Mormons
raises the issue if speciation has occurred, which again to me seems
plausible (that there should be an argument - not opining either way)

[Zen Cycle]

On Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 3:45:24 AM UTC-5, martin...@gmail.com wrote:

That jumps headlong into the church as a political authority, not a religious one.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 03:06:30 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 3:45:24 AM UTC-5, martin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 09:43:39 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
>> wrote:
>> >Martin Harran wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:17:08 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
>> >>> could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
>> >>> Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
>> >>> It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
>> >>> Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
>> >>> Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
>> >>> figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
>> >>> as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Seems pretty simple to me. A Christian is someone who believes in the
>> >> divinity of Christ
>> >
>> >Ahhh, but would that rule out adoptionists? Some of them, or all of
>> >them? What about arianism? Sure, all ruled heretic by the early church,
>> They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted
>> authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair
>> enough with me.
>
>The winners write the history.

It wasn't history when the decisions were made and documented.

>
>
>>I see an analogy here with science and ID. Proponents
>> of ID like to make out that they are doing science but the
>> overwhelming consensus among practising scientists is that ID doesn't
>> even come close to being science and that conclusion is accepted among
>> the scientific community at large.
>>
>> Anyone can call themselves Christian or any other designation, but
>> unless that is accepted by the majority of those actually involved in
>> the particular activity, then the self-designation is meaningless.
>> >but for the purpose of Oxyaena's question, that does not bind us of course
>
>Catholics are a minority among Christians.

You might want to check your figures; the latest ones on Wikipedia are
2.6 billion Christians in total, 1.345 billion of them being
Catholics. That alone makes Catholics a tiny majority but in practical
terms, you can add to it the 18 million independent denominations that
self-identify as Catholic and, arguably the 100 million members of the
Anglican tradition whose differences with the Catholic Church are
generally more to do with governance structure and liturgical practice
than with theology. I suspect that also applies to quite a few other
Protestant denominations

>So far it's only a fraction of the Protestants who deny that Catholics are Christians, but if it became a majority, would Catholics then no longer be Christian?

Taking your own approach in other discussions, can you suggest a way
in which such a majority might be identified and reliably assessed?

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 05:41:35 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

You mean "consistently referred to himself as a Christian (though
following his own unique type of Christianity) ... "

As I've noted elsewhere, anyone can self-designate themselves under
any label they want or redefine a term to suit themselves but that
self-designation or redefining is not self-validating.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 03:06:30 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com>:

<snip to a single point>

>
>Catholics are a minority among Christians.
>

Or not. From:

https://www.learnreligions.com/christianity-statistics-700533

"According to the Pew Research Center, in 2015, there were
2.3 billion Christians of all ages living in the world."

....and...

"Nearly one-third or 31.2% of the world's population is
considered to be Christian. The term Christian encompasses a
broad range of denominations, with Roman Catholicism
comprising the largest group made up of around 1.3 billion
adherents. Protestants, Evangelicals, Orthodox, Anglicans,
and many other sub-denominations are included in the count."

So according to those figures, Catholics comprise over 56%
of all Christians, hardly a minority.

>
> So far it's only a fraction of the Protestants who deny that Catholics are Christians, but if it became a majority, would Catholics then no longer be Christian?
>

I'd say no, the basic definition being belief in Christ as
divine, but that's a personal opinion. But given this...

"According to the Center for the Study of Global
Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary,
there are approximately 41,000 Christian denominations and
organizations in the world today."

....I'd say it's a moot point, since getting even a plurality
of denominations, much less a majority, of religious groups
to agree on just about anything would likely be as
productive as herding cats. And since even a majority of
non-Catholic Christians would still fall short of a majority
of Christians...
>
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Glenn]

No, I didn't mean that. Your arrogance appears to have no bounds.

>
> As I've noted elsewhere, anyone can self-designate themselves under
> any label they want or redefine a term to suit themselves but that
> self-designation or redefining is not self-validating.

I could not care less about what you "noted". Any group can likewise self-designate themselves as whatever they want, and is no less "self-validating" than by an individual. Neither you nor your sick friends gets to redefine religious terms for others, and you don't get to judge, lest you be judged.
In your alleged belief, there is only one person that can and will judge you, as well as Franklin. And you do suit yourself, so if I am wrong and you are not an atheist, you might want to do some really deep self reflection. But I don't think I'm wrong about you, and I judge you on what you claim to believe, not what I think you should believe, to be a Christian. Yes, I will be judged as well, and am being judged all the time, but not by anyone else's particular interpretation of words in their Bible.
Franklin was an honorable, honest man. Judge him at your peril, not in any life to come, but the one you're in now. Personally, I see no difference in the two.

I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am.

[Zen Cycle]

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary is a few miles from my house. They have a pretty decent disc golf course on campus that I frequently play.

[Zen Cycle]

Given that the winners made the decisions in the first place, I'd say that point is at least arguable.

> >
> >
> >>I see an analogy here with science and ID. Proponents
> >> of ID like to make out that they are doing science but the
> >> overwhelming consensus among practising scientists is that ID doesn't
> >> even come close to being science and that conclusion is accepted among
> >> the scientific community at large.
> >>
> >> Anyone can call themselves Christian or any other designation, but
> >> unless that is accepted by the majority of those actually involved in
> >> the particular activity, then the self-designation is meaningless.
> >> >but for the purpose of Oxyaena's question, that does not bind us of course
> >
> >Catholics are a minority among Christians.
> You might want to check your figures; the latest ones on Wikipedia are
> 2.6 billion Christians in total, 1.345 billion of them being
> Catholics.

I thought Bills claim was dubious as well.

[Zen Cycle]

Oh the irony...

> >
> > As I've noted elsewhere, anyone can self-designate themselves under
> > any label they want or redefine a term to suit themselves but that
> > self-designation or redefining is not self-validating.
> I could not care less about what you "noted". Any group can likewise self-designate themselves as whatever they want, and is no less "self-validating" than by an individual. Neither you nor your sick friends gets to redefine religious terms for others, and you don't get to judge, lest you be judged.
> In your alleged belief, there is only one person that can and will judge you, as well as Franklin. And you do suit yourself, so if I am wrong and you are not an atheist, you might want to do some really deep self reflection. But I don't think I'm wrong about you, and I judge you on what you claim to believe, not what I think you should believe, to be a Christian. Yes, I will be judged as well, and am being judged all the time, but not by anyone else's particular interpretation of words in their Bible.
> Franklin was an honorable, honest man. Judge him at your peril, not in any life to come, but the one you're in now. Personally, I see no difference in the two.
>
> I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am.

Speaking for Jesus now, huh? Gee, that isn't arrogant at all....

[broger...@gmail.com]

I don't need to decide how such a majority might be identified and reliably assessed. You are the one who wrote that "Anyone can call themselves Christian, but unless that is accepted by the majority of those actually involved in the particular activity, then the self-designation is meaningless." You are the one invoking the importance of a majority that gets to decide who is Christian, so you are the one who needs to decide how to count that majority in the first place.

My definition was neither a self-designation (I am not a Christian) nor the imposition of majority rule. I just said that a good definition would be that a religion is Christian if there is no person more central to it's belief system than Jesus. It's pretty broad, but you're perfectly free to call Arian Christians or Gnostic Christians or any others you like "heretical Christians," if you like. The Arians, in fact, had a pretty good run of it, and had history turned out slightly differently, they might have been the winners and Trinitarians might be denounced in the history books as heretical polytheists.

You are right that, at least for now, Catholics are a bare majority of Christians, but the way things are going in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, they'll lose that position pretty soon, as the evangelicals are making big inroads in all those places.

[Glenn]

You're about as silly as Ron.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 10:45:38 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Zen Cycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com>:

Cool; enjoy!

[Öö Tiib]

Jesus outright commanded Christians (John 13:34) yet they are nasty
towards one another. And that seemingly because of disagreement over
things that said deity did never address in any of books.

[mig själv]

tisdag 14 december 2021 kl. 09:45:24 UTC+1 skrev martin...@gmail.com:

> Anyone can call themselves Christian or any other designation, but
> unless that is accepted by the majority of those actually involved in
> the particular activity, then the self-designation is meaningless.
> >but for the purpose of Oxyaena's question, that does not bind us of course

There are (republican) politicians who pretend to believe in God.
Their voters se them as christians while other persons see them as con artists.
When they gain power they take money from the poor and give to the rich.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 10:29:20 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

I make no judgment at all about him, I simply corrected your
quote-mine which seems to have annoyed you considerably.

>And you do suit yourself, so if I am wrong and you are not an atheist, you might want to do some really deep self reflection. But I don't think I'm wrong about you, and I judge you on what you claim to believe, not what I think you should believe, to be a Christian. Yes, I will be judged as well, and am being judged all the time, but not by anyone else's particular interpretation of words in their Bible.
>Franklin was an honorable, honest man. Judge him at your peril, not in any life to come, but the one you're in now. Personally, I see no difference in the two.
>
>I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am.

Sorry, Glenn, but I don't regard you as a reliable judge of what Jesus
would think.

[Martin Harran]

Was the Church not a political authority for longer that it wasn't a
political authority?

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

If people who call themselves Christians based their ideas on what the
Bible says Jesus actually said and did then Christianity would be less
awful than it is. Unfortunately they don't. They prefer to imply that
he was a nice tall muscular clean-cut white American who liked to
patrol black neighbourhoods with an assault rifle. It all started with
St Paul, and has got worse since.


--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 16:31:44 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>

This is far beyond my knowledge domain. If what you say is correct [1]
and there has been a strong adoptionist element within Christianity
right back to the earliest days and right through to the present day,
then my "belief in the divinity of Christ" as a measure probably
doesn't stand. I say *probably* because I think you could get into an
endless semantic debate about definitions of what is meant by Jesus
being divine, but anyway, it is too fuzzy a term to use as a
definitive measure of what Christianity is.

[1] I'm not suggesting you aren't correct but a very superficial
reading about this seems to suggest that there is a lot of debate
about it all.

I think that suffers from the same fuzziness as I referred to above
regarding the divinity of Jesus. We may have to settle for
"Christianity" as one of those terms which we can't define precisely
but everyone knows what it means, at least in general and the edge
cases don't particularly matter anyway - does it really matter whether
or not Mormons are technically Christian?

[Martin Harran]

I'm not sure when I last saw so many sweeping statements in one short
paragraph.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> If people who call themselves Christians based their ideas on what the
> Bible says Jesus actually said and did then Christianity would be less
> awful than it is. Unfortunately they don't. They prefer to imply that
> he was a nice tall muscular clean-cut white American who liked to
> patrol black neighbourhoods with an assault rifle. It all started with
> St Paul, and has got worse since.
>

Yeah there is definitely that morph, the Christian Identity element that
takes the religion well outside its original Levantine context and
Europeanizes or Americanizes it for political and racial purposes.

Early on there was conflict perhaps between Paul and James factions about
the Gentiles, Paul seeking more universalization, recruitment amongst
Gentiles, and accommodation with those not strictly abiding by Torah. The
contrasting tendency would be more Law-abiding and maintenance of a Judaic
character for Christianity.

The Gentile faction won out. And with the problematic anti-semitic aspects
in the Gospels the stage would be set for abhorrent bigotry later alongside
lack of a strong stance against slavery or “old testament” passages that
promote the curse of Ham.

I’m glossing over the history a bit, but in the proto-Nazi era a Germanic
trope for an Aryanized Jesus was there. There was the Pantera legend on
Jesus’s dad. Houston Chamberlin and Alfred Rosenberg may have been
proponents of an Aryanized Jesus that divested him of his Jewish identity.

In Merka it would be too easy to morph these tendencies alongside
exceptionalism (that goes against “city on a hill” beacon to world
universalism mythology) into a white power bastardization of Jesus. I
imagine Europe is not immune to this.

And even without the Christian Identity element at the fringes that could
become more mainstream, there’s an odd coupling of Gospels and the 2nd
amendment (guns and Jesus). Jesus came not to bring peace but a fully
automatic assault rifle. But the crusaders may have similarly thought
themselves in a similar light as they sought to crush the infidels.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 13:45:25 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"

Possibly so but I don't think it is signficant to your argument unless
you can show that they would not regard Catholics as fellow
Christians.

[Zen Cycle]

And you're as hypocritical as any MAGA moron.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Certainly. The reconquista in Spain is a good example. The tradition is
that Christian good guys eventually conquered the Muslim bad guys, but
it's nowhere near as simple as that. One could make a strong case that
the Muslim south was a lot more civilized than the Christian north.

[Lawyer Daggett]

The significance is clear: it avoids the fallacy of leaving it to something as capricious
as a vote of a majority.

I write that despite the very fact that word meaning does tend to evolve with usage.
Nevertheless, in an important semantic sense, we would like words to refer to
more robust concepts than a majority vote which is clearly something fickle.

[Martin Harran]

It wasn't me who introduced *voting* and it's not the term I would use
- it is really meaningless in this context. The word that I used was
*consensus*, with the example that there is a consensus among
scientists that ID does not qualify as science without a vote ever
having been taken.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 2:05:25 AM UTC-5, oot...@hot.ee wrote:

Mr. Tiib, I presume? Email masking in Google is hiding your full address,
but what remains rings a bell, as the English idiom goes; a pretty loud one, at that.

What I'm seeing on this thread is one of the things I love about talk.origins:
the need to adequately respond to sophisticated atheists and other Christianity debunkers
stimulates me to do deep "homework" on the ideas and claims that they propound.

The need is enhanced by the way Glenn does not have the kind of background on these issues
that I have: decades of "homework" from a secular angle which makes possible an in-depth response.

Jesus is depicted as directly speaking to his disciples, not Christians or self-designated Christians in general.
In the very next verse, he is quoted as saying: "By this love you have for one another,
everyone will know that you are my disciples."

I hope you don't think Glenn is out of line by hewing to the spirit of these verses
and eliminating some self-designated "Christians" from being worthy of being Jesus's disciples.

> And that seemingly because of disagreement over
> things that said deity did never address in any of books.

What "said deity" are you referring to? Jesus? He never wrote any books
that have come down to us, and there is only one incident in the Bible where
he is depicted as writing anything. This was when he wrote in the sand,
during the confrontation with people testing him whether he approved of stoning
a woman who was allegedly caught in adultery. This is at the beginning of John 8.

Further on in that chapter is something that illustrates a dilemma I often
am confronted with: should I act on dishonesty and hypocrisy that I see every day
according to Jesus's teachings, or according to the example he set?

Sometimes I go with one, sometimes the other. I often find myself
following the example he set in John 8: 43-47, in a secular sort of way,
about lying and refusal to deal with what I actually write.
And I follow his example elsewhere in dealing with rampant hypocrisy.
Jesus attacked hypocrisy in lots of places in the Gospels, and I have as little patience with it as he did.

Earlier this month, by the way, I nailed John Harshman in a clear case of hypocrisy
on something he has done for at least five years as regards off-topic posting:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/H-SFHyhHp8w/m/ixp2wNr6CgAJ
Re: Vaccination
Dec 3, 2021, 3:03:19 PM

Never again will Harshman be able to deflect me from describing incidents of
hypocrisy, dishonesty, and cowardice by a phony pretense at being "concerned" about off topic posting.


Peter Nyikos

PS I believe that at some point I gave you at least a partial explanation
of why I call myself a Christian. If you don't remember me doing that, or
you would like to hear more, please let me know and I'll be very forthcoming.

[broger...@gmail.com]

My argument is that defining Christian religion based on a majority view among self-defined Christians is not the best way to define it. It doesn't matter whether the majority would or would not exclude the group you happen to belong to.

And there are certainly plenty of evangelicals who consider Catholics to be non-Christian polytheists. Long ago one of them said to me, "I've never been to a Catholic wedding, only to Christian ones." Another, a Central American evangelical convert from Catholicism, told me Catholics were not Christians because they worshipped many gods, like Peter, and Mary. It's not easy to find statistics on what fraction of evangelical protestants consider Catholics not to be Christian, but it does not seem to be an inconsiderable fraction of them. In any case, my argument is only that defining who is Christian by the opinion of the majority of self-designated Christians seems a poor definition.

I'd stick with "A religion is Christian if no person is more central to its belief system than Jesus."

[*Hemidactylus*]

How did a thread about the ontology of Christianity suddenly become about
John Harshman who hasn’t even posted to this thread or been previously
mentioned? That’s just weird.

[Mark Isaak]

However, that's not far different from how word meanings work. A word
means what a consensus of its users intend it to mean. Sometimes there
are different sets of people who use the word in different ways, and
then the word has multiple meanings. For example, "bank" can be a place
to keep money, or the side of a stream, or something else, depending on
who you are communicating with at the time. I submit that this property
of multiplicity of meanings has relevance to the word "Christian".

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred
to the presence of those who think they've found it." - Terry Pratchett

[Glenn]

As a stimulus, how non-Christian of all of you.

[Zen Cycle]

Quite obviously, and not just christian iterations. To be more clear - with:

"They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair enough with me."

Are you suggesting that a government based on particular religious doctrines "seem fair enough" to you?

[Zen Cycle]

Witness the peters narcissistic personality disorder on display

[jillery]

What you describe above is arguably weird wrt most people, but it's
practically inevitable with the peter.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[broger...@gmail.com]

I think the difference is that word meanings evolve based on the consensus of the users of the word, not on the consensus of those designated by the word. Sunnis may consider the word "Muslim" to exclude the Shia, and certainly to exclude some Indonesian Muslim sects that retain elements of Hinduism. Most non-Muslims would go with something along the lnes of "Muslims are those who revere the Prophet Mohammed and accept the five pillars of Islam. Evangelical Christians may consider Catholics and the Orthodox to be excluded from the definition of Christian. I think that you get less tendentious definitions from people who don't have a dog in the fight. So, I'd go with a consensus among a majority of users of the word rather than among a majority of those self-designating with the word.

And, as you say, words can have different definitions in different contexts. Even more so in polemical contexts.

[Glenn]

You stumble so much with all the rocks you walk around in, that I'm not at all surprised at that logic.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:05:26 AM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 2:05:25 AM UTC-5, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>
> Mr. Tiib, I presume? Email masking in Google is hiding your full address,
> but what remains rings a bell, as the English idiom goes; a pretty loud one, at that.
>
> What I'm seeing on this thread is one of the things I love about talk.origins:
> the need to adequately respond to sophisticated atheists and other Christianity debunkers
> stimulates me to do deep "homework" on the ideas and claims that they propound.
>
> The need is enhanced by the way Glenn does not have the kind of background on these issues
> that I have: decades of "homework" from a secular angle which makes possible an in-depth response.

Wow. Sounds like we're all in for a special treat. Given this grand occasion, I will go
against my best instincts and adopt the postis interruptis style. But the deep nesting
is awkward so I'll do some cleanup.

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:05:26 AM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
[PN]

> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 2:05:25 AM UTC-5, oot...@hot.ee wrote:

[OT2]

> > On Tuesday, 14 December 2021 at 20:30:25 UTC+2, Glenn wrote:

[G3]

> > > On Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 9:55:25 AM UTC-7, martin...@gmail.com wrote:

[M4]

> > > > On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 05:41:35 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

[G5]

> > > > >On Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 1:55:24 AM UTC-7, martin...@gmail.com wrote:

[M6]

> > > > >> On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 08:21:17 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

[G7]

> > > > >> >On Monday, December 13, 2021 at 2:45:25 AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:

[B8]
> > > > >> >> Martin Harran wrote:
[M9]

> > > > >> >> > On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:17:08 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>

[O10]

[O10] The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
[O10] could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
[O10] Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
[O10] It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
[O10] Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
[O10] Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
[O10] figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
[O10] as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
.
[M9] Seems pretty simple to me. A Christian is someone who believes in the
[M9] divinity of Christ

[B8] Ahhh, but would that rule out adoptionists? Some of them, or all of
[B8] them? What about arianism? Sure, all ruled heretic by the early church,
[B8] but for the purpose of Oxyaena's question, that does not bind us of course
.
[M9] and tries to follow his teachings. Moslems do not
[M9] accept his divinity and I don't think Mormons believe Joseph Smith was
[M9] divine.
.
[G7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Thomas_Jefferson
.
[G7] Apparently Martin would deny Jefferson's claim of being a Christian.
.
[M6] "Jefferson was most comfortable with Deism, rational religion,
[M6] Theistic rationalism, and Unitarianism.[3] He was sympathetic to and
[M6] in general agreement with the moral precepts of Christianity.[4]"
.
[M6] This is just the latest in a long-running series of cites posted by
[M6] you which state the opposite of what you seem to think they state. I
[M6] can't figure out whether you just don't bother reading the things you
[M6] cite or whether you suffer from sort of comprehension deficit.

[M6] Then again, I could be wrong, maybe you're not disagreeing with what
[M6] the article says, it might be it might just be your total inability to
[M6] clearly express your own arguments.
.
[G5] Nothing but insults here, except for the quote. Here's another: "consistently referred to himself as a Christian".
.
[M4] You mean "consistently referred to himself as a Christian (though
[M4] following his own unique type of Christianity) ... "
.
[G3] No, I didn't mean that. Your arrogance appears to have no bounds.

[M4] As I've noted elsewhere, anyone can self-designate themselves under
[M4] any label they want or redefine a term to suit themselves but that
[M4] self-designation or redefining is not self-validating.
.
[G3] I could not care less about what you "noted". Any group can likewise
[G3] self-designate themselves as whatever they want, and is no less
[G3] "self-validating" than by an individual. Neither you nor your sick
[G3] friends gets to redefine religious terms for others, and you
[G3] don't get to judge, lest you be judged.
[G3] In your alleged belief, there is only one person that can and will
[G3] judge you, as well as Franklin. And you do suit yourself, so
[G3] if I am wrong and you are not an atheist, you might want to do
[G3] some really deep self reflection. But I don't think I'm wrong about
[G3] you, and I judge you on what you claim to believe, not what
[G3] I think you should believe, to be a Christian. Yes, I will be judged
[G3] as well, and am being judged all the time, but not by anyone
[G3] else's particular interpretation of words in their Bible.

> > > Franklin was an honorable, honest man. Judge him at your

[G3] peril, not in any life to come, but the one you're in now. Personally, I see no difference in the two.
.
[G3] I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am.
.
[O2] Jesus outright commanded Christians (John 13:34) yet they are nasty
[O2] towards one another.
.
Get ready. Here's comes enlightenment.
.
[PN] Jesus is depicted as directly speaking to his disciples, not Christians or self-designated Christians in general.
[PN] In the very next verse, he is quoted as saying: "By this love you have for one another,
[PN] everyone will know that you are my disciples."
.
Whoa. The passage in question. (John 13:34)
33 Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as
I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you.
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved
you, that you also love one another.
35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

What fascinating exegesis. "A new commandment I give to you ..." is not speaking
to Christians in general. We are truly blessed to benefit from [quoting from above]

[PN] The need is enhanced by the way Glenn does not have the kind of background on these issues
[PN] that I have: decades of "homework" from a secular angle which makes possible an in-depth response.

[PN] I hope you don't think Glenn is out of line by hewing to the spirit of these verses
[PN] and eliminating some self-designated "Christians" from being worthy of being Jesus's disciples.

What the heck? What odd twisting are you implying?
Ootiib made an observation that Jesus gave his 'followers' a commandment
to love one another but that (in his estimation) they are nasty to each other.

Somehow you've twisted that into opinions by Glenn that have not even been
voiced in response, or something, I really don't know what because
it's preemptive and presumptuous. Somewhere in there you seem to be
imagining some distinction between "disciples" and other Christians but
it's not really spelled out and doesn't match to what anyone else wrote
and I can't read your mind.

[O2] And that seemingly because of disagreement over
[O2] things that said deity did never address in any of books.

[PN] What "said deity" are you referring to? Jesus? He never wrote any books
[PN] that have come down to us, and there is only one incident in the Bible where
[PN] he is depicted as writing anything. This was when he wrote in the sand,
[PN] during the confrontation with people testing him whether he approved of stoning
[PN] a woman who was allegedly caught in adultery. This is at the beginning of John 8.

Okay, score a trivia point about Gospels not being written by Jesus and they
merely reflect latter day recapitulations of his teachings, and yet the general idea
among the vast majority of Christians is that in some manner, way, shape or form
there was some divine inspiration that kept them true to form.

That of course often gets brought up as an apparent problem when typos
creep in, or translations vary, but that is an argument for another day. The
main thing here is that you've deflected away from the point of a commandment
to love one another as a foremost essential teaching from Jesus himself
which some might consider innately more significant than extensive recasting
of things by one or more Pauls.

[PN] Further on in that chapter is something that illustrates a dilemma I often
[PN] am confronted with: should I act on dishonesty and hypocrisy that I see every day
[PN] according to Jesus's teachings, or according to the example he set?

So this special commentary of your is about turning the discussion to
being about you and your philosophy?

[PN] Sometimes I go with one, sometimes the other. I often find myself
[PN] following the example he set in John 8: 43-47, in a secular sort of way,
[PN] about lying and refusal to deal with what I actually write.
[PN] And I follow his example elsewhere in dealing with rampant hypocrisy.
[PN] Jesus attacked hypocrisy in lots of places in the Gospels, and I have as little patience with it as he did.

So the commentary is about you and how you're like Jesus.

[PN] Earlier this month, by the way, I nailed John Harshman in a clear case of hypocrisy
[PN] on something he has done for at least five years as regards off-topic posting:
.
[PN] https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/H-SFHyhHp8w/m/ixp2wNr6CgAJ
[PN] Re: Vaccination
[PN] Dec 3, 2021, 3:03:19 PM
.
[PN] Never again will Harshman be able to deflect me from describing incidents of
[PN] hypocrisy, dishonesty, and cowardice by a phony pretense at being "concerned" about off topic posting.

So the commentary is about you, how you're like Jesus, and how you
have slain the Dragon Harshman who had not previously be credited in this film.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 09:33:29 -0800 (PST), Zen Cycle

No, I most certainly am not but, based on your past record, I am not
the least bit surprised at you trying to twist my words into something
entirely different from what I said.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 12:55:25 PM UTC-5, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 11:10:25 AM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> > On 12/15/21 5:46 AM, Lawyer Daggett wrote:

[deletia]

> > > I write that despite the very fact that word meaning does tend to evolve with usage.
> > > Nevertheless, in an important semantic sense, we would like words to refer to
> > > more robust concepts than a majority vote which is clearly something fickle.
.
> > However, that's not far different from how word meanings work. A word
> > means what a consensus of its users intend it to mean. Sometimes there
> > are different sets of people who use the word in different ways, and
> > then the word has multiple meanings. For example, "bank" can be a place
> > to keep money, or the side of a stream, or something else, depending on
> > who you are communicating with at the time. I submit that this property
> > of multiplicity of meanings has relevance to the word "Christian".
.
> I think the difference is that word meanings evolve based on the consensus of the users of the word, not on the consensus of those designated by the word. Sunnis may consider the word "Muslim" to exclude the Shia, and certainly to exclude some Indonesian Muslim sects that retain elements of Hinduism. Most non-Muslims would go with something along the lnes of "Muslims are those who revere the Prophet Mohammed and accept the five pillars of Islam. Evangelical Christians may consider Catholics and the Orthodox to be excluded from the definition of Christian. I think that you get less tendentious definitions from people who don't have a dog in the fight. So, I'd go with a consensus among a majority of users of the word rather than among a majority of those self-designating with the word.
>
> And, as you say, words can have different definitions in different contexts. Even more so in polemical contexts.

.
I tried to cover the aspect of lexicography whereby the writers of dictionaries
capture actual word usage in crafting definitions, that they are descriptive rather
than proscriptive. There is of course the tradition of the Académie Française
which would attempt to control a language but we all agree it is a somewhat
unnatural thing. In scientific circles (and beyond) there are other places where
groups attempt to control nomenclature and more broadly and quite significantly
define ontologies with controlled vocabulary.

It certainly all gets messy with things like belonging to theistic traditions as one
might expect of areas that generally self-admit they are addressing 'mysteries'.
It of course gets weird when people use belonging and not belonging to a group
as part of tribalistic battles.

[Glenn]

"The Holy See is the name given to the government of the Roman Catholic Church, which is led by the pope as the bishop of Rome. As such, the Holy See's authority extends over Catholics throughout the world."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Holy-See

[Zen Cycle]

Nicely done. I would add that glen also invoked his own christ-like behaviour with " I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am. "

[Glenn]

Apparently you think what I said was "naughty" or "bad". Whatever, thanks for the insight.

[Zen Cycle]

Well, first off, I didn't twist anything, I asked you to clarify. I don't think it's too far of a leap to go from

"judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair enough with me"

to

'in favor of government based on religious doctrines' given the recognition of the church's political history

To be even more clear, I did _not_ write 'this is what you think'. I asked "is this what you mean?"

Given your professed catholicism, I don't think it's an unreasonable question to ask a devout catholic if they would be satisfied with a government and culture run by the church.

Thank you for writing 'no' btw, I didn't think you were, but "They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair enough with me." gave me pause. Whenever I read statements like that it smacks to me of a government based on religious doctrines, or at least a slippery slope leading to one. I read the vast majority of your posts, and though we have some disagreements on fundamental issues I appreciate your contributions here.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 11:10:25 AM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:

Son, in the Spirit of talk.origins, I should let you Father a pun cascade.

[Zen Cycle]

Add 'insight' to something else you have little of. I regard " I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am. " as a serious character flaw. You aren't jesus. You aren't even close to jesus. Your character is so badly flawed that you have absolutely no business making any claims as to what jesus would think of anyone's behaviour, let alone equate your opinion to that of what you think jesus's might be. All you did with that little rant was to confirm what everyone here really thinks about you (except peter) - you're an arrogant hypocritical little troll. The only jesus you could ever hope to even aspire to is this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISRpBAzAimY

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:40:25 AM UTC-5, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

Bottom-posting Hemidactylus shows how he is more interested in sterile
theoretical abstractions than in the nitty-gritty of the theme of the OP:
"What is Christianity?" He completely glosses over a dilemma that confronts
any thinking Christian at some point, even if it is only to come down on one side or the other:

> > Further on in that chapter is something that illustrates a dilemma I often
> > am confronted with: should I act on dishonesty and hypocrisy that I see every day
> > according to Jesus's teachings, or according to the example he set?
> >
> > Sometimes I go with one, sometimes the other. I often find myself
> > following the example he set in John 8: 43-47, in a secular sort of way,
> > about lying and refusal to deal with what I actually write.
> > And I follow his example elsewhere in dealing with rampant hypocrisy.
> > Jesus attacked hypocrisy in lots of places in the Gospels, and I have as
> > little patience with it as he did.

Hemidactylus doesn't like to talk about the morality of concrete things like
dishonesty and hypocrisy. For over a month he badgered me to talk about
whether there is such a thing as "objective morality." I finally shut him
up by explaining how "Might Makes Right" -- the very morality that animates his choice
of which regulars to be on good terms with and which to fight against perennially --
to be an example of objective morality.

> > Earlier this month, by the way, I nailed John Harshman in a clear case of hypocrisy
> > on something he has done for at least five years as regards off-topic posting:
> >
> > https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/H-SFHyhHp8w/m/ixp2wNr6CgAJ
> > Re: Vaccination
> > Dec 3, 2021, 3:03:19 PM
> >
> > Never again will Harshman be able to deflect me from describing incidents of
> > hypocrisy, dishonesty, and cowardice by a phony pretense at being
> > "concerned" about off topic posting.
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
> >
> > PS I believe that at some point I gave you at least a partial explanation
> > of why I call myself a Christian. If you don't remember me doing that, or
> > you would like to hear more, please let me know and I'll be very forthcoming.

Disregarding the above PS, which speaks to a topic that permeates this thread,
Hemidactylus shows how he is just as much of a hypocrite about on-topic posting
as Harshman is convincingly shown to be in the post that I linked above:

> How did a thread about the ontology of Christianity suddenly become about
> John Harshman who hasn’t even posted to this thread or been previously
> mentioned?

Jesus often spoke in parables, and John Harshman's behavior on the thread where I nailed him
is a fine example of a real-life parable of what hypocrisy in general is like.


> That’s just weird.

More hypocrisy by Hemidactylus. The only reason I cannot nail him as effectively
as I could Harshman is that Harshman demonstrated his hypocrisy many times over
on the thread where I nailed him, in every single post he did on that thread.
Hemidactylus's demonstrations of his hypocrisy are more diffuse.


Peter Nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 1:45:26 PM UTC-5, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:05:26 AM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 2:05:25 AM UTC-5, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> >
> > Mr. Tiib, I presume? Email masking in Google is hiding your full address,
> > but what remains rings a bell, as the English idiom goes; a pretty loud one, at that.
> >
> > What I'm seeing on this thread is one of the things I love about talk.origins:
> > the need to adequately respond to sophisticated atheists and other Christianity debunkers
> > stimulates me to do deep "homework" on the ideas and claims that they propound.
> >
> > The need is enhanced by the way Glenn does not have the kind of background on these issues
> > that I have: decades of "homework" from a secular angle which makes possible an in-depth response.


> Wow. Sounds like we're all in for a special treat.

Not on your timetable. Having gotten done with turning in final grades close to midnight
last night, I now have to get caught up on a lot of obligations that I have had to postpone.
This morning it was finding a Christmas tree that the whole family can be happy with,
and another for a daughter who is living separately.

You will just have to put up with a postponement of the thing you pretend to be interested in,
and since we are getting close to my annual ca. 1 month holiday posting break, the in-depth homework
I envisioned to Mr. Tiib, a far, far better man than yourself [1] , may have to wait until the new year.

> Given this grand occasion, I will go
> against my best instincts and adopt the postis interruptis style. But the deep nesting
> is awkward so I'll do some cleanup.

Have all the fun you want, but don't expect me to comment on your clumsy attempt at satire.

I leave you with a comment about your inability to catch nuances that are just below the
surface: possibities are not the same thing as immediate realities. [2]

[1] The metaphor I've used for elsewhere is that being a better man than you is a nanometer-high bar to clear.
As to "far, far better," it goes with a millmeter-high bar.

[2] re-read the last clause: "makes possible an in-depth response."


Peter Nyikos

PS the rest of the clumsy attempt is below, and I've left it in for readers who might
be of as low caliber as yourself.

[Glenn]

That's real Christian of you.

[Zen Cycle]

Says the hypocritical little troll who wrote " I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am. "
The big difference is that I never claimed to be one.

[Glenn]

One what?

[Zen Cycle]

Sorry Sparky, I don't dance for you.

[Glenn]

You just did.

[jillery]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:19:43 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

>As a stimulus, how non-Christian of all of you.

And a Merry non-Christmas to you too.

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 6:25:25 PM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:19:43 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> wrote:
> >As a stimulus, how non-Christian of all of you.
> And a Merry non-Christmas to you too.

I keep forgetting - it's already time for me to start making war on Christmas again. Happy holidays!

[André G. Isaak]

On 2021-12-15 16:36, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 6:25:25 PM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:19:43 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>> wrote:
>>> As a stimulus, how non-Christian of all of you.
>> And a Merry non-Christmas to you too.
>
> I keep forgetting - it's already time for me to start making war on Christmas again. Happy holidays!

Wait. You mean we have to fight that war EVERY year??? I thought we
already won that one.

André


--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail
service.

[*Hemidactylus*]

In which fever dream did you hallucinate that?

On this thread that shutting me up didn’t happen:

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/MW5Bgsn7fWU/m/lQHcVJLIAQAJ

On that thread you totally missed the point of my subtle carpenter bee
analogy:
“I think you misunderstand what boring means in context of carpenter bees
producing frass. Now there is more left on the floor that the senior bee is

boring.

In your tunneling of the rafters have you managed to stumble upon a defense
of objective morality discoverable out there? Evaluations such as
right-wrong or good-bad surely cannot carry the same sort of claim to
validity as true-false. The carpenter bee produces frass is factual. Frass
is bad is evaluative as is the assertion the act of frass production is
wrong. YMMV.”

Where among my lessons to you was:

“Might makes right is hardly a moral system. Expedience, instrumentality,
prudence, morality...”

“I think you may be conflating objective study of moral systems with their
intersubjective justifications. It’s similar to conflating epistemic
objective study of human behavior with ontologically subjective qualia.”

“Science can provide food for thought but not by itself provide
justification for moral decisions. Largely different
magisteria though religion is not a necessary constituent.

You can use social science to survey stances on moral issues taken within
societies or compare moral systems across societies in a nonjudgmental way
but it won’t tell you what to value, what is good or what is right.”

And I posted this link:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sara-Mitchell-13/publication/30011598_Might_Makes_Right_or_Right_Makes_Might_Two_Systemic_Democratic_Peace_Tales/links/0c960535fdbfb29dad000000/Might-Makes-Right-or-Right-Makes-Might-Two-Systemic-Democratic-Peace-Tales.pdf

Or this:
“https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/18310/Temam_oregon_0171A_10887.pdf

The author focuses on ambiguity arising from multiple meanings. There is
implicit equivocation between capacity to do something and permission to do
something. Given the previous article I cited on “might makes right” as a
more benign principle in international relations I am all for thinking
outside the box and embracing the resulting aporia.

I wonder given the troublesome equivocation how much heavy lifting Kant’s
“ought implies can” may (or can?) do in bestowing palatability on “might
makes right” if the latter is subordinated.

Ought implies can typically means we wouldn’t blame someone for not doing
the right thing if incapable. Given a group of people confronted with a
need to act to remedy a wrong only a subset have the requisite capacity
(“might”) to act. We wouldn’t expect the incapable to rise to the occasion.
So in some handwavy sense “might” undergirds the rightness of those capable
of doing the deed to do the deed.

Or in a slightly different approach we would forbid those lacking the
requisite power to effectively act on a situation because they would
increase overall harm (to themselves and others). Think firefighters tasked

with saving children from a burning building. The stronger members of the
group are permitted to act (do the right thing) because they have requisite

might.”

And: “Yet getting back to moral implications of might makes right Temam
says in a
footnote:

“Thus for Hobbes, the right that might makes seem to be a prudential kind
of right, an instrumental kind. Self-preservation or security is the end;
the justice constructed through the social contract merely the means. Thus
being unjust through not abiding by the voluntary act of limiting one's
right to everything does not seem to be morally wrong in a sense of
morality that is independent of might or contract: being unjust here means
simply being imprudent and irrational since one does not act as one ought
to in order to achieve one's end.”

So “might makes right” here is more along lines of self-serving prudence or

instrumentality than true other-oriented morality?

And Peter’s use of “might makes right” as an epithet in this group seems
quite self-serving and incongruously imposed and not at all in tune with
what others are actually thinking when they act here as contributors.
Surely it cannot substitute for morality.

Much earlier elsethread I said: “Might makes right is hardly a moral
system. Expedience, instrumentality, prudence, morality...”

And I have captured the raw essence of Kant’s categorical
imperative...treating people non-instrumentally as ends not means. What is
Glenn to Peter? What was Joe Potter to Peter in the late 90s?

Peter seems the paragon of self-serving instrumentality, but imprudent as
it so often fails him given his inability to play well with others. A more
effective player wouldn’t generate the degree of mutual animosity he does,
a case of expectations driving outcomes. Or he actually craves the
conflict.”

“From a Kantian standpoint, in terms of a form of his categorical
imperative, treating people as mere means is immoral, such as when you go
through a post and use other posters as set pieces to employ in one of your
asinine polemic games (passion of the Peter ploys).

Calling Burk a nonentity for example is an act of polemic domination. Doing

so is as Machiavellian as when Cesare had his victims of political
violence
publicly displayed. Your polemic instrumentality is close to your being
what you misconstrue as a “political animal” so calling others such things
is projection plain and simple. How moral is that? Yet “political animal”
doesn’t really mean what you assume it does. It merely reflects humans
require social contact and political (in the kinship sense) engagement. It
has no Machiavellian connotation.

You do demonstrate the power of reflexivity. You seem to treat social
networks such as this one as venues of inherent conflict. And by no
accident you wind up with conflict. Your perception generates the expected
outcome. Fancy that.”


How exactly did you shut me up on might makes right? Are you rewriting
usenet history?

>
>>> Earlier this month, by the way, I nailed John Harshman in a clear case of hypocrisy
>>> on something he has done for at least five years as regards off-topic posting:
>>>
>>> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/H-SFHyhHp8w/m/ixp2wNr6CgAJ
>>> Re: Vaccination
>>> Dec 3, 2021, 3:03:19 PM
>>>
>>> Never again will Harshman be able to deflect me from describing incidents of
>>> hypocrisy, dishonesty, and cowardice by a phony pretense at being
>>> "concerned" about off topic posting.
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>
>>> PS I believe that at some point I gave you at least a partial explanation
>>> of why I call myself a Christian. If you don't remember me doing that, or
>>> you would like to hear more, please let me know and I'll be very forthcoming.
>
>
> Disregarding the above PS, which speaks to a topic that permeates this thread,
> Hemidactylus shows how he is just as much of a hypocrite about on-topic posting
> as Harshman is convincingly shown to be in the post that I linked above:
>
>> How did a thread about the ontology of Christianity suddenly become about
>> John Harshman who hasn’t even posted to this thread or been previously
>> mentioned?
>
> Jesus often spoke in parables, and John Harshman's behavior on the thread
> where I nailed him
> is a fine example of a real-life parable of what hypocrisy in general is like.
>

Why bring it up on this thread?

>
>> That’s just weird.
>
> More hypocrisy by Hemidactylus. The only reason I cannot nail him as effectively
> as I could Harshman is that Harshman demonstrated his hypocrisy many times over
> on the thread where I nailed him, in every single post he did on that thread.
> Hemidactylus's demonstrations of his hypocrisy are more diffuse.
>

Or in your imagination.

As far as unresolved topics that are more recent that you have clammed up
about:
“After the three or so months, it's up to the T-cells to produce new
antibodies in the wake of new infections. But the T-cells have been primed
to produce the kinds that did the job on the earlier infection.”

[Burkhard]

André G. Isaak wrote:
> On 2021-12-15 16:36, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 6:25:25 PM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>>> On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:19:43 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> As a stimulus, how non-Christian of all of you.
>>> And a Merry non-Christmas to you too.
>>
>> I keep forgetting - it's already time for me to start making war on
>> Christmas again. Happy holidays!
>
> Wait. You mean we have to fight that war EVERY year??? I thought we
> already won that one.

And a good think too! Verily, Christmas makes Jesus look like “a
glutton, an epicure, a wine-bibber, a devil”.


>
> André
>
>

[Burkhard]

Martin Harran wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Dec 2021 16:31:44 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
> wrote:

>
>> Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 09:43:39 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>

>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:17:08 -0500, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The definition of Christianity I find is a pretty slippery one. One
>>>>>> could argue that Christianity is defined as "the religion centered on
>>>>>> Christ the Redeemer," but I think that definition is too reductionist.
>>>>>> It doesn't cover *how* Christ is Redeemer, or what His title of the
>>>>>> Redeemer even *means*. Christ is also a pretty important figure in
>>>>>> Islam, but we don't count Islam as Christian. Christ is an important
>>>>>> figure in Mormonism, but so is Joseph Smith. Why do we count Mormonism
>>>>>> as Christian and not Islam? Boggles the mind, truly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Seems pretty simple to me. A Christian is someone who believes in the
>>>>> divinity of Christ
>>>>
>>>> Ahhh, but would that rule out adoptionists? Some of them, or all of
>>>> them? What about arianism? Sure, all ruled heretic by the early church,
>>>

>>> They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted
>>> authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair
>>> enough with me. I see an analogy here with science and ID. Proponents
>>> of ID like to make out that they are doing science but the
>>> overwhelming consensus among practising scientists is that ID doesn't
>>> even come close to being science and that conclusion is accepted among
>>> the scientific community at large.
>>>
>>> Anyone can call themselves Christian or any other designation, but
>>> unless that is accepted by the majority of those actually involved in
>>> the particular activity, then the self-designation is meaningless.
>>
>>

>> Couple of problems with that I'd say. The first is a rather
>> counterintuitive (to say the least) outcome. You include Mormonism
>> (doubly odd as they have an adaptionist bend) within the Christian
>> label, but you exclude the ebonites, thinkers such as Theodotus,
>> Elipandus of Toledo (an archbishop in the church)or bishop Felix of
>> Urgel, and quite possibly Peter Abelard and Duns Scotus. All of these
>> groups and thinkers, from early Christianity to the scholastics. By any
>> meaningful measure, they are much closer to mainstream Christianity than
>> Mormonism, with disagreements about something that for most people is a
>> rather abstract theological point.
>>
>> Indeed, if Bart Ehrmans "evolutionary" theory holds, then the early
>> Church, possibly for the first 150 years at least, was predominantly or
>> exclusively adoptionist (what he calls "low Christology), "high
>> Christiology" the later invention.
>
> This is far beyond my knowledge domain. If what you say is correct [1]
> and there has been a strong adoptionist element within Christianity
> right back to the earliest days and right through to the present day,
> then my "belief in the divinity of Christ" as a measure probably
> doesn't stand. I say *probably* because I think you could get into an
> endless semantic debate about definitions of what is meant by Jesus
> being divine,

that's fair enough btw. We have the history written by the winner (and
while I think Ehrmans' case is overall compelling, he does not have much
primary data from the groups themselves either, most of it is through
the eyes of their enemies. Adoptionists were accused by the triniaritan
winners of having rejected the divinity of Christ, but some of them did
beg to differ - just not the type of "divine" that became to dominate,
more a sort of "rank" than "intrinsic nature"


but anyway, it is too fuzzy a term to use as a
> definitive measure of what Christianity is.
>
> [1] I'm not suggesting you aren't correct but a very superficial
> reading about this seems to suggest that there is a lot of debate
> about it all.
>
>>
>> So if one follwoed your argument to its logical conclusion, then there
>> were no Christians until around 150AD, but Mormons are Christians, and I
>> just don't think that makes sense.
>>
>> The second is the argument from authority, which I think does not hold
>> on historical grounds, and the analogy fails on systematic grounds. The
>> decision to declare Arianism a heresy was not the result of a
>> quasi-scientific inquiry or a reasoned debate, nor was it a decision by
>> "the duly constituted authorities - in fact the very concept of
>> authority only came about as a result of this conflict. It was a power
>> ploy where an ad-hoc coalition of smaller groups managed to align
>> themselves with the pagan authorities - at least partially due to the
>> fact that the Arians had their main followship among the unruly Visogoth
>> in Spain. And even then the victory was far from complete, and right to
>> the 7th century, Lombards Goths and Vandals were predominately Arians
>> (and largely left in peace, also because Constantine II had been Arian)
>> You'd be hard pressed to find any objective criterion why they were not
>> just wrong, but so wrong to not count as Christians at all.
>>
>> And that, apart from the ahistoricity, is the other reason the analogy
>> does not work. For the science label, it wither becomes a sociological
>> question of observing what scientists do - and there numbers matter, but
>> you don;t have them with these religions disputes, or there is some
>> "fact of the matter", some external criterion that gives us good reasons
>> to put the label "science" on one activity not the other. I don't see
>> what the equivalent in this theological dispute would be,
>>
>> as for the argument by number, and the argument by "officially declared
>> heresy" - well, that would rule out Protestants. Or Catholics. At least
>> for most of their respective histories. Again not a position that looks
>> defensible to me.
>>
>> Sure, the label "Christian"" must have some meaning beyond mere
>> self-declaration. I offered a "genetic" one: evolved from the early
>> Christian communities. That avoids most of these issues, and for Mormons
>> raises the issue if speciation has occurred, which again to me seems
>> plausible (that there should be an argument - not opining either way)
>
> I think that suffers from the same fuzziness as I referred to above
> regarding the divinity of Jesus.

Yes, it is fuzzy. But by design. Things tat evolve have fuzzy borders,
that holds for species just as it holds for philosophies, religions or
scientific theories. Any concept inevitably will be sharper than
reality, that's in the nature of concepts (no entity without identity),
but one can mitigate the effet and make the concepts as open ended as
necessary.


We may have to settle for
> "Christianity" as one of those terms which we can't define precisely
> but everyone knows what it means, at least in general and the edge
> cases don't particularly matter anyway - does it really matter whether
> or not Mormons are technically Christian?

yes, that's how I'd see it too, just as we can ask if Great Danes and
Chihuahuas are still the same species and even come to different answers
depending on context

[DB Cates]

Why leave out the "friend of publicans and sinners">
>
>>
>> André
>>
>>
>


--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[peter2...@gmail.com]

The above attempt at satire by LD is a clumsy twisting of the dilemma I am faced with,
and which Jesus presumably was not faced with. One striking statement in one of the Gospels
is that Jesus knew human nature well. I take this to mean that he knew which behavior and
which teachings were appropriate to which audience. I am still a beginner at understanding human nature,
as is every regular in talk.origins that I have ever encountered.

> > > > > Peter Nyikos
> > > > >
> > > > > PS I believe that at some point I gave you at least a partial explanation
> > > > > of why I call myself a Christian. If you don't remember me doing that, or
> > > > > you would like to hear more, please let me know and I'll be very forthcoming.


> > > Nicely done.

Are you referring to my PS? If so, I'm glad, because most regulars are extremely tight-lipped
about their religion, or lack thereof, and they don't offer to elaborate on their self-designations.

However, the rest of what you write indicates that you are recognizing in LD (L. Daggett for short)
a kindred spirit, and are inspired by his off-the-wall rhetoric.

I recognized months ago that you were a kindred spirit of his, and commented on how
you had been an adequate replacement for him in the campaign of denigration against
people like me who refuse to go along to get along. As if to prove me wrong, LD went into
a mad orgy of clueless, off-the-wall speculation about how I would react to a naive reply by Erik Simpson
a decidedly on-topic subject: the beginning of life.

It's obvious that LD hasn't a clue as to how crucial an understanding of the RELEVANT biochemistry is to that subject:
all his chest-thumping about knowing biochemistry is about vaccines. And so he looked like a fish out of water flapping wildly about.

Anyway, I thought he outdid you by far in that orgy of idiocy, but the basic character seems
to be the same in both of you. You are both yearning for a place to fit in, and you quickly
found out from the way both Burkhard and Hemidactylus fawned on you for making
an LD-clone attack on me just how best to do that. I'm sure they both (especially Hemidactylus)
will be very happy to see your attack on Glenn below, as will about a dozen other people
who are too bashful to tell you about it publicly.

>I would add that glen also invoked his own christ-like behaviour with " I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am. "

Not nicely done. You confuse giving one's opinion on one example of behavior,
which may be Biblically based, with talking about one's own behavior. And that's putting it mildly.

Of course, if all you want to do is rack up more brownie points with Hemidactyus,
any stupid attack is as good as any sensible one.

> > Apparently you think what I said was "naughty" or "bad". Whatever, thanks for the insight.

> Add 'insight' to something else you have little of.

...glass houses...stones.

> I regard " I'd say that Jesus would be disgusted to read what you just wrote. I know I am. " as a serious character flaw. You aren't jesus.

He has, however, read a lot about Jesus, both in the Gospels and in St. Paul's letters.

> You aren't even close to jesus.

How much do you know about Jesus as he is depicted in the Bible, as opposed to reading commentaries by atheists on the Bible?

Have you even read commentaries by Christian writers? I'd recommend two books by Catholics,
one _The Everlasting Man_ G. K. Chesterton, and _The Son of God_ by Karl Adam to people who are serious
about understanding the unique challenge that Jesus poses.

My guess is that you couldn't care less about learning anything like that -- it would cramp your style --
but I tell a bit below for the benefit of any readers who are interested.

Chesterton looks at Jesus in an utterly different way than most "devout" Catholics
on the one hand do, and most atheists on the other hand do, but what he writes is more true
to the paradoxical Jesus that the Gospels *actually* depict.

Karl Adam is more theological, yet is unafraid of tackling the really big questions,
especially those surrounding the Resurrection and Jesus's claims to divinity.

>Your character is so badly flawed that you have absolutely no business making any claims as to what jesus would think of anyone's behaviour,

I don't see you sticking your neck out about what YOU think Jesus would think of Glenn's behavior, even here.
But without doing that, how do you expect anyone to think you've got a valid point?
Do you expect to win a "famous victory" like the one Hume recommended for every debater?

"A total suspense of judgment is here our only reasonable resource.
And if every attack, as is commonly observed,
and no defence, among theologians, is successful;
how complete must be *his* victory, who remains
always, with all mankind, on the offensive,
and has himself no fixed station or abiding city,
which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged to defend?"
http://students.english.ilstu.edu/flknowl/flk2/mrdialog.htm

I do believe that most people on this thread are so tight-lipped for that very reason.
And I expect them to cheer for you just as Hemidactylus cheered for you back in August and as he also
cheered the hapless Wolffan years ago -- but that didn't mean he thought Wolffan had
much of anything upstairs.

> let alone equate your opinion to that of what you think jesus's might be. All you did with that little rant was to confirm what everyone here really thinks about you (except peter)

Here, it is you who are demonstrating a character flaw: pretending to know what everyone in talk.origins thinks about Glenn.
With this, you are simulating delusional behavior.


On what do you think you are basing your claim? The fact that you are aping the way so many
of them make generic insults against Glenn without backing them up with anything worth
taking seriously? Especially below:

> - you're an arrogant hypocritical little troll. The only jesus you could ever hope to even aspire to

...is the Jesus who said something to the rich young man that neither you, nor Hemidacylus,
nor about ten other people I could name seem to have any use for. When the rich man
asked Jesus what he should do to earn eternal life, Jesus began by listing> some commandments
to keep, and one of them was "Do not bear false witness."

Note, he did NOT add "against your neighbor." Jesus meant "against anyone."

There is a tremendous amount of false witness against Glenn going around.
But are you able to prove any serious false witnessing by Glenn?

No need to confine yourself to this thread. You may go back as many years as you wish.

> is this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISRpBAzAimY

I don't click on YouTube links in talk.origins without being provided a synopsis.


Peter Nyikos

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:05:26 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 3:00:25 PM UTC-5, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 2:35:25 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 12:25:25 PM UTC-7, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 1:45:26 PM UTC-5, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
> > > > > On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:05:26 AM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:

[big snip]

> > > > Nicely done.
> Are you referring to my PS? If so, I'm glad, because most regulars are extremely tight-lipped
> about their religion, or lack thereof, and they don't offer to elaborate on their self-designations.
>
> However, the rest of what you write indicates that you are recognizing in LD (L. Daggett for short)
> a kindred spirit, and are inspired by his off-the-wall rhetoric.
>
> I recognized months ago that you were a kindred spirit of his, and commented on how
> you had been an adequate replacement for him in the campaign of denigration against
> people like me who refuse to go along to get along. As if to prove me wrong, LD went into
> a mad orgy of clueless, off-the-wall speculation about how I would react to a naive reply by Erik Simpson
> a decidedly on-topic subject: the beginning of life.
>
> It's obvious that LD hasn't a clue as to how crucial an understanding of the RELEVANT biochemistry is to that subject:
> all his chest-thumping about knowing biochemistry is about vaccines. And so he looked like a fish out of water flapping wildly about.
>
> Anyway, I thought he outdid you by far in that orgy of idiocy, but the basic character seems
> to be the same in both of you. You are both yearning for a place to fit in, and you quickly
> found out from the way both Burkhard and Hemidactylus fawned on you for making
> an LD-clone attack on me just how best to do that. I'm sure they both (especially Hemidactylus)
> will be very happy to see your attack on Glenn below, as will about a dozen other people
> who are too bashful to tell you about it publicly.

Wow. You apparently have a great deal of time to make this wild accusations away from context
while you keep claiming that you have no time to deal with the detailed posts about the nonsense
you write. Why is that?

You can't respond in the thread where you made so many false claims about vaccine mandates.
You can respond above where you had announced you would apply your grand knowledge but
then spewed nonsense, you just dismissed it as "satire" --- which it wasn't.

Brave Sir Robin runs away and then casts aspersions from afar.
Take your posting break. Run away. Then come back and pretend you weren't repeatedly
handed your own ass. Or don't come back and re-evaluate your life. Because your huffing and
puffing away from threads where points are made is really very pathetic. Most of your recent posts
hardly need a reply because they stand alone as self-refuting. The above qualifies as such because
it shows you making wild accusations away from the posts where you imagine you scored grand
victories or you imagine others failed to make their points. Again, the fact that you beat your
chest away from the originals makes the point better than any detailed retort can.

[Lawyer Daggett]

I get it. You crafted an inept post with stupid comments that you can't defend and so
you dodge it a response.

The thing is, you complain if I collect my thoughts all together at the bottom, and then
you complain if I collect them all at the middle, and now you dodge them if I disperse
them and place them in direct proximity to where you say stupid things.

It isn't satire. I'm very sincere in my criticisms of your nonsense. Your avoidance is validation.

[*Hemidactylus*]

peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> The above attempt at satire by LD is a clumsy twisting of the dilemma I am faced with,
> and which Jesus presumably was not faced with. One striking statement in one of the Gospels
> is that Jesus knew human nature well.

Did he attribute bad behavior to influence of hassatan, a lesser character
in the Tanakh who made his most overt presence known in the Book of Job,
was nowhere near the Garden of Eden unlike the hapless serpent morphed from
Gilgamesh, and converged more toward Ahriman in the Zoroastrian inspired
intertestamental period? Is that knowledge of human nature or just
superstition that lives on with ignorant practices such as exorcism?

Jesus, the greatest of the psychologists, exorcised some rando and cast his
demons into some hapless pigs which then drowned. That has to be one of the
dumbfoundingly stupidest stories in the New Testament.

> I take this to mean that he knew which behavior and
> which teachings were appropriate to which audience.

The Gadarene swine might beg to differ.

> I am still a beginner at understanding human nature,

Major understatement there.

> as is every regular in talk.origins that I have ever encountered.
>

Not many as novice as you. If you were more self-aware you might not be
having the interpersonal issues you have had here.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:05:26 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
...

> The above attempt at satire by LD is a clumsy twisting of the dilemma I am faced with,
> and which Jesus presumably was not faced with.

I am ruthlessly extracting this singular sentence to make a point.

Yes, I've stripped it of context. I assert it doesn't matter. The point is, it's an incredibly
clueless thing to write. All context be damned, it is bound to come across as sounding
like somebody thinks they have suffered worse than the guy who got crucified.

Peter, you continually amaze at how you seem completely unaware of how you come across.
Your mind will race and craft reasons why you think my take is wrong. You'll line up reasons
you think refute the interpretation I have offered. And you'll be wrong. People who read those
words will see someone comparing themselves to Jesus and claiming that they have it worse.

It isn't about what was going on in your head. It's about the letters on the page. It isn't about
me. It isn't about a conflict as you judge it. It's about the words you wrote.

I don't believe that you intended it in the way it come across, yet that's how I think it comes across.
But you apparently can't feel it. That's quite a handicap. I'll assert that there's more in how
you write that is as or more damaging to your projected persona, and assert that this damage
causes people to react negatively to you. I'll further assert that this cycles back into you
being reactively aggressive in response leading to most of your interactions spiraling into
increasing animosity. You certainly get under my skin.

Somehow, I doubt you're as big of an ahole as you come across on-line. But you lack that
third eye, the one that can see yourself as others might see you. It's a horrible handicap.
As you prepare for your posting break, consider it. Think of how much more effective you
could be in whatever it is you're trying to do if you didn't manage to unintentionally
irritate so many people. Perhaps you are beyond feeling your way through this, but you
have the intellect to address it if you apply yourself. Look at that quote above. Think
about how it can be construed as you claiming to suffer worse than Jesus (even if you
had no such intent). Apply your keen mind to avoid such statements. What's the worst
it could do?

[Glenn]

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 9:40:25 PM UTC-7, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:05:26 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> ...
> > The above attempt at satire by LD is a clumsy twisting of the dilemma I am faced with,
> > and which Jesus presumably was not faced with.
> I am ruthlessly extracting this singular sentence to make a point.
>
> Yes, I've stripped it of context. I assert it doesn't matter. The point is, it's an incredibly
> clueless thing to write. All context be damned, it is bound to come across as sounding
> like somebody thinks they have suffered worse than the guy who got crucified.
>

If you were capable you'd benefit from considering whether you are sane. Facing a dilemma is not even similar to "suffering".
And no one here beside me will say one single thing about your attempt to make a brazen quote mine into a rose. You and
others might consider that as well, and perhaps get a clue.

[Burkhard]

Because I quoted not from the original, but a later and slightly changed
version - William Prynne, the firebrand puritan preacher used it in one
of his sermons to get Christmas prohibited. In his view celebrating
Christmas (well, apart from maybe a short domestic bible reading about
hellfire) made Christ look exactly as his enemies claimed in Matthew

This war on Christmas was rather successful in parts of the country, so
in Scotland, Christmas wasn't really a bit thing until the 1980s or so

>>
>>>
>>> André
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>

[Burkhard]

Bit more war on Christmas:

Luxurious disorderly Christmas-keeping" are ‘meere sinfull, wicked
unchristian pastimes, vanities, cultures and disguises’, To ‘decke up …
Houses with Laurell, Yuie and green boughes’ be forbidden Going out for
entertainment is ‘a voluptuous and base servilitie to our filthie
carnal lusts’. Should people of other faiths observe ‘our Bacchanalian
Christmas extravagancies’ they would ‘thinke our Saviour to be a
glutton, an Epicure, a wine-bibber … a God of all dissolutenesse,
drunkennesse and disorder’.

In the Bible there is nothing about feasting, carousing, gambling or
heathenish Christmas pastimes’; rather, ‘Glory be to God on high, on
earth peace, good will towards men … is the Angels’, the Shepherds’ only
Christmas Caroll’, which the Virgin Mary ‘hath prefaced with this
celestiall hymne of prayse, My soule doth magnifie the Lord…’

So I exhort you to abandon ‘riotous grand-Christmasses’ and instead to
‘cordially meditate’ on the Scriptures and on the meaning of ‘our
Saviour’s blessed incarnation’ and to praise God ‘in Psalmes, hymnes and
spirituall songs’

>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> André
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 11:44:12 -0800 (PST), Zen Cycle

It's a big leap when I had specifically included the delimiter "the
accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice". I
have compared the sort of consensus I was talking about to science. If
I had said that I regarded as fair enough, a decision about what
qualifies as science by the National Academy of Sciences as an
accepted authority in regard to scientific standards and practice, I
doubt that you would have taken that as an indication that I might
support a government rujn by scientists.

>To be even more clear, I did _not_ write 'this is what you think'. I asked "is this what you mean?"
>

>Given your professed catholicism, I don't think it's an unreasonable question to ask a devout catholic if they would be satisfied with a government and culture run by the church.;;

If I had any doubts about how bad it would be, I just have to look at
the problems created in the USA by the undue influence the Christian
Right has on government!

>
>Thank you for writing 'no' btw, I didn't think you were, but "They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair enough with me." gave me pause. Whenever I read statements like that it smacks to me of a government based on religious doctrines, or at least a slippery slope leading to one. I read the vast majority of your posts, and though we have some disagreements on fundamental issues I appreciate your contributions here.

Thank you, that's encouraging to hear as I have been coming close to
the conclusion that posting here is pointless as there seems an
ever-increasing tendency for people to read far more into what I post
than what I intend :(

[jillery]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 17:37:40 -0700, André G. Isaak
<agi...@gm.invalid> wrote:

>On 2021-12-15 16:36, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 6:25:25 PM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>>> On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:19:43 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> As a stimulus, how non-Christian of all of you.
>>> And a Merry non-Christmas to you too.
>>
>> I keep forgetting - it's already time for me to start making war on Christmas again. Happy holidays!
>
>Wait. You mean we have to fight that war EVERY year??? I thought we
>already won that one.
>
>André

The oppostion practices guerilla tactics, disinformation, terrorism,
and asymmetric warfare.

[Glenn]

I take this as evidence that you are, along with the Catholic Church, atheist, and enemies of Christianity.

> >
> >Thank you for writing 'no' btw, I didn't think you were, but "They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair enough with me." gave me pause. Whenever I read statements like that it smacks to me of a government based on religious doctrines, or at least a slippery slope leading to one. I read the vast majority of your posts, and though we have some disagreements on fundamental issues I appreciate your contributions here.



> Thank you, that's encouraging to hear as I have been coming close to
> the conclusion that posting here is pointless as there seems an
> ever-increasing tendency for people to read far more into what I post
> than what I intend :(

Please don't go.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2021 07:44:42 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

No Glenn, you, your ID bedfellows and the Christian Right are the real
enemies of Christianity as warned by St Augustine. It's a classic case
of none so blind as those who will not see.

>> >
>> >Thank you for writing 'no' btw, I didn't think you were, but "They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair enough with me." gave me pause. Whenever I read statements like that it smacks to me of a government based on religious doctrines, or at least a slippery slope leading to one. I read the vast majority of your posts, and though we have some disagreements on fundamental issues I appreciate your contributions here.
>
>
>
>> Thank you, that's encouraging to hear as I have been coming close to
>> the conclusion that posting here is pointless as there seems an
>> ever-increasing tendency for people to read far more into what I post
>> than what I intend :(
>
>Please don't go.

Why, would you miss me?

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2021 07:44:42 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

BTW, I find that sentence difficult to parse. Are you now claiming
that the whole Catholic Church is atheist, not just me?

[Glenn]

In a sense, yes. "Against" God is no different than "without" God. Is Satan an atheist?

[Glenn]

This sounds more like an idiot Irishman still affected by the conflict between protestants and Catholics, with everything but God in his heart.

> >> >
> >> >Thank you for writing 'no' btw, I didn't think you were, but "They were judged not to be Christian by those who were the accepted authorities in regard to Christian belief and practice - seems fair enough with me." gave me pause. Whenever I read statements like that it smacks to me of a government based on religious doctrines, or at least a slippery slope leading to one. I read the vast majority of your posts, and though we have some disagreements on fundamental issues I appreciate your contributions here.
> >
> >
> >
> >> Thank you, that's encouraging to hear as I have been coming close to
> >> the conclusion that posting here is pointless as there seems an
> >> ever-increasing tendency for people to read far more into what I post
> >> than what I intend :(
> >
> >Please don't go.
> Why, would you miss me?

Others would.

[Zen Cycle]

Wow, "glen the bigot"....who woulda thunk?

> with everything but God in his heart.

Which you would know nothing about.

[Zen Cycle]

As a non-christian and an american I reserve the right to engage in Luxurious disorderly Christmas-keeping, meere sinfull, wicked, unchristian pastimes, vanities, cultures, and disguises. I reserve the right to ‘decke up my house with Laurell, Yule and green boughes’ and go out for voluptuous and base servilitie to my filthie carnally lustful entertainment.

> Should people of other faiths observe ‘our Bacchanalian
> Christmas extravagancies’ they would ‘thinke our Saviour to be a
> glutton, an Epicure, a wine-bibber … a God of all dissolutenesse,
> drunkennesse and disorder’.

I partied with that dude in college.

[Glenn]

You are aware that people are watching, right?

[Zen Cycle]

Yes, I'm completely comfortable with people witnessing "This sounds more like an idiot Irishman still affected by the conflict between protestants and Catholics "

Proud of that are ya?

[Glenn]

Pride, eh. Pride isn't involved. Is pride involved in what *you* say?

[jillery]

In the category of Self-parody:

"Against" God is no different than "without" God.