Re: political
- From: Bart Goddard <goddardbe@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 1 Aug 2007 15:55:02 GMT
"Alex W." <ingilt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:5h9vtpF3j52iiU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
For one thing, this subthread is about theology. The Pope has
some; Graham doesn't. It's not so much about flavor of showmanship,
but what's behind the showmanship. Graham et al. have no substance.
The Pope has 2000 years of substance.
That's like me saying I must be a better person because I have a
family tree going back to 1179.
No it's not. It's not the years that's the point here, but the
fact that Christian theology is a pseudo-science which has been
developed over 2000 years. People have done actual work on it.
Graham did nothing. If you'd been working on being a better
person since 1179, and compared yourself to a drug
addict who hadn't been working on being a better person at all,
then you'd have a correct analogy.
Sorry, my bad -- he just hammered nails in the door (which, yes, I
know, was perfectly acceptable back when). The defacement and
barbarism was perpetrated by his followers.
Not his followers, the followers of Carlstadt, who caused a lot
of trouble in Luther's absence.
So how would a non-mathematician know who was right? The crackpot
says "blah blah blah" and the real mathematicians argues "blah
blah blah." Who's right?
What you do is examine the evidence.
The non-mathematician is not capable of examining the evidence.
He has no training, and maybe no talent for mathematics. How is
he going to "judge for himself" whether the crackpot's paper is
correct? The answer is: he can't, unless he spends a few years
training.
If your crackpot through some
cosmic joke really has come up with a viable proof, can you afford to
dismiss it because the messenger does not conform to the rules of the
game? What you should not do is insist that he cannot possibly be
correct because his form is unorthodox. Jesus himself was unorthodox,
went against the grain of the then pervailing theology.
The point here is that _he can't_ come up with a viable proof, because
it's already been proven (airtight, ironclad, 100%) that a general
angle can't be trisected by ruler and straighedge construction.
It's not "unorthodox", it's simply wrong.
If the crackpot claims to have a short proof of Fermat's Last
Theorem, then the paper would be glanced at, since such a
thing has not been proven to not exist. But a paper claiming
to trisect an angle is just ignored.
So St. Paul said that if anyone (even an angel) preached a gospel
different from the one he and the Apostles taught, then it would
be a false gospel. The apostolic Gospel is "Salvation by grace
through faith for Christ's sake." So if some charletan gets up
and starts preaching "You gotta be a Jehovah's Witness to be saved"
or "You gotta be bitten by a serpent and live to show you have
saving faith" or "If you don't speak in tongues, you don't have
the Spirit" or any of that other works-righteous nonsense, then
we don't need to bother with it.
Theology is not a science, but it is a discipline. IF you study it
(and I'm not saying you should) THEN you could make an informed
decision.
It is a discipline. Or rather, it is a number of competing
disciplines.
Again, you're just making stuff up and you don't know. The
differences in various mainstream churches' doctrines are
slight. They all buy into the Nicene Creed, for instance.
Also, there's not "competition", but mostly a difference in
the choice of axioms. Protestant's axiom is "Sola Scriptura",
the RC's is "Authority of the Church" and the EO's is "Traditions."
These things manifest as differences in doctrine, but to think
of them as "competing" is to compare apples to oranges.
A congregation wants a pastor who will
teach correct doctrine and he can't do that unless he knows correct
doctrine.
Yes, it is bad.
It stops the congregation from exploring their own relationship with
God, on their own terms and in their own understanding. It guides
exegesis and belief into a safe box and does its damnedest to make
sure not a stray thought escapes.
Again, this is just your own insulting spin. It doesn't
stop anything, but rather enhances one's relationship with God.
In terms of theology, his pedigree was every bit
as long as yours....
Really? How long is mine?
Says you. But the only reason you think this, that I can tell, is
that your intuition likes it. But, in fact, it's not a
well-thought-out "doctrine", and there are serious flaws with it (and
many untested assumptions.)
You would say that.
Your faith is predicated upon a closed system.
"Closed system" doesn't mean anything. You have this, completely
incorrect, completely bigotted picture of what you think
Christianity is. You like calling it "closed", but who
knows what that means? I'd guess you think that we're all
programmed and not allowed to think. Yet, (the irony is
painful) you're the one that can't let go of the picture
the TV has programmed into your head. Go figure.
For the zillionth time, Christianity isn't about what we do,
but about what God did. Christian pastors don't say "we all
have to do this", but "here's what God did." That's how you
can tell a faithful pastor from a charletan.
How strange, then, that much of what one can hear in church is "this
is what you have to do because God (and the Church) tells you to".
How strange, rather, that a guy who is not a church-goer
thinks he knows what goes on in a church. I know that it's
PC to be bigotted against Christians, but that doesn't make
it any less sick than racism.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
.
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