Putting this literal Genesis thing to bed ...

[shunyadragon]

I actually don't see how you read that as rude or sarcastic, I'm not saying you are wrong I just cant read it in any other way then he seeing your point of it.

Your English comprehension needs some brushing up, because he is basically describing me as a part of a 'side show,' and lumping me with his negative view of fundamentalist Christians.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

If you say so, thanks for jumping on me also, by the way, I sure deserve it!

 

[StevePame]

In my view, that isn't a sarcastic or rude comment either. Simply a phrase of speech. Could it maybe be phrased in third person instead of second person? Yes. But, I don't believe Thomas had any loaded meaning in using that phrase.

 

[shunyadragon]

In my view, that isn't a sarcastic or rude comment either. Simply a phrase of speech. Could it maybe be phrased in third person instead of second person? Yes. But, I don't believe Thomas had any loaded meaning in using that phrase.

I do not believe this severe enough to bring to serious issue. The simple phrase of speech, accuse someone of being in a 'sideshow' where circus freaks are kept and put on display is a classic insult.

 

[Thomas]

The simple phrase of speech, accuse someone of being in a 'sideshow' where circus freaks are kept and put on display is a classic insult.

My dear Shunyadragon –

'Sideshow', at least in UK English, does not infer 'circus freaks' but something that is apart from and ancialliary to the main event, as it were. The phrase is in common use to infer just that, without any pejorative connotations. I never meant it to imply anything like the meaning you attribute to it.

By 'sideshow' I meant the current debates about Creationism and Intelligent Design with regard to orthodox Christian doctrine. As I have stated, neither ideas, as currently couched in the US, are any part of mainstream Christian thinking, of any of the mainstream denominations. They have cropped top historically, but have no direct or immediate impact on the denomination doctrines. Traditional Christianity holds creation as a 'theophany', but that does not infer Intelligent Design to the point that the natural process of evolution is ignored, for example. I can also think of instances where natures displays apparently unintelligent design, and even an apparent cold, cruel and callous design if there was a God micromanaging the affair.

Nor did I ever include you in that. You are not Christian, so I cannot see how you can think it applies to you? All my references of 'sideshow' refer to the fundamentalist Christian nonsense, from Creationism, right through to Westboro Baptist Church.

I did say that if you're in it, the fact that it is, in the scheme of things, irrelevant, is small consolation. I have sympathised with Will, with Da and with you on this point. If such was the general tenor of belief where I am, I would be quite annoyed!

So please accept my apology if I have offended.

In return, I ask that you might refrain from such comments as 'This clearly indicates your inability to respond intelligently and rationally to the discussion...' and references to my comments as 'spineless'? I don't take offence, but tend to step back to allow the air to cool.


I have tried to respond to your comments to the best of my abilities.

 

[Thomas]

It makes it tough to even getting a draw, considering unresolvable chasm between fundamentalist Christianity, and the liberal revisionist Christianity concerning how to deal with science.

ah, that's a pity. There is plenty of good stuff happening in what you perceive as an 'unresolvable chasm' between two extreme positions. I agree that the good work in any field tends not to draw the headlines, but it's a shame when people's opinions are formed by such extremist positions, with no recognition or allowance for the middle ground.

 

[shunyadragon]

ah, that's a pity. There is plenty of good stuff happening in what you perceive as an 'unresolvable chasm' between two extreme positions. I agree that the good work in any field tends not to draw the headlines, but it's a shame when people's opinions are formed by such extremist positions, with no recognition or allowance for the middle ground.

If you can demonstrate a middle ground I am willing to listen, the fundamentalist literal interpretation is as much a no compromise position as much as the conservative Tea Party position in Congress and they are related in belief. Other churches like the Seventh Day Adventists offer no compromise with their belief in a literal interpretation. The polls I referenced describe a clear description of not much change over the years with the dominant position being a literal interpretation of Genesis, except that in the latest polls the younger people are becoming more humanist as far as endorsing evolution without God involved.

It is a problem of Christianity not offering a middle ground, and the conservative no compromise position.

 

[Devils' Advocate]

It is not a matter of Christianity not offering a middle ground. The fundamentalist religious groups are the ones unwilling to offer any middle ground. Not all Christians in this country are fundamentalists though. There are even some liberal Christians out there!

The issue is that it is the fundamentalists who are in the positions of power in this country. They tend to be ultra-conservative when it comes to their politics, which is indeed a no compromise position. This is the source of the problem, political activism by fundamentalists. Quite frankly it is my belief that there is now, and has been for some time, a fundamentalist Christian war against America. We see it over and over again where conservative governors and congressmen pass laws that make their version of religion the law of the land.

 

[shunyadragon]

My dear Shunyadragon –

'Sideshow', at least in UK English, does not infer 'circus freaks' but something that is apart from and ancialliary to the main event, as it were. The phrase is in common use to infer just that, without any pejorative connotations. I never meant it to imply anything like the meaning you attribute to it.

By 'sideshow' I meant the current debates about Creationism and Intelligent Design with regard to orthodox Christian doctrine. As I have stated, neither ideas, as currently couched in the US, are any part of mainstream Christian thinking, of any of the mainstream denominations. They have cropped top historically, but have no direct or immediate impact on the denomination doctrines. Traditional Christianity holds creation as a 'theophany', but that does not infer Intelligent Design to the point that the natural process of evolution is ignored, for example. I can also think of instances where natures displays apparently unintelligent design, and even an apparent cold, cruel and callous design if there was a God micromanaging the affair.

Nor did I ever include you in that. You are not Christian, so I cannot see how you can think it applies to you? All my references of 'sideshow' refer to the fundamentalist Christian nonsense, from Creationism, right through to Westboro Baptist Church.

I did say that if you're in it, the fact that it is, in the scheme of things, irrelevant, is small consolation. I have sympathised with Will, with Da and with you on this point. If such was the general tenor of belief where I am, I would be quite annoyed!

So please accept my apology if I have offended.

In return, I ask that you might refrain from such comments as 'This clearly indicates your inability to respond intelligently and rationally to the discussion...' and references to my comments as 'spineless'? I don't take offence, but tend to step back to allow the air to cool.


I have tried to respond to your comments to the best of my abilities.

American English has a very different meaning. 'Sideshows' are where the freaks are, and accusing someone as in it is not how you describe it. I will mark this one up to a difference in the cultural use of English.

Based on the polls cited the conservative fundamentalist Creationist is not a 'side show,' it is dominant force is US religion and politics. In fact the polls of foreign countries out side Europe and the Orient is an important view in the third world.

 

[shunyadragon]

It is not a matter of Christianity not offering a middle ground. The fundamentalist religious groups are the ones unwilling to offer any middle ground. Not all Christians in this country are fundamentalists though. There are even some liberal Christians out there!

The issue is that it is the fundamentalists who are in the positions of power in this country. They tend to be ultra-conservative when it comes to their politics, which is indeed a no compromise position. This is the source of the problem, political activism by fundamentalists. Quite frankly it is my belief that there is now, and has been for some time, a fundamentalist Christian war against America. We see it over and over again where conservative governors and congressmen pass laws that make their version of religion the law of the land.

Good post! When the more liberal Protestant churches and the Roman Church propose a science friendly interpretation of Genesis and some other issues, they are unconditionally rejected. There is no middle ground regardless who draws the line in the sand.

 

[Thomas]

It is not a matter of Christianity not offering a middle ground. The fundamentalist religious groups are the ones unwilling to offer any middle ground. Not all Christians in this country are fundamentalists though. There are even some liberal Christians out there!

Quite, although I would posit that the liberals are just the other extreme of the fundies, and both are as intransigent in their own way.

I don't like discussing nationalist issues, as the majority audience here is American, I'm not.

What does frighten me however is that the right wing Christian brigade, which as a Christian I've criticised time and again, demonstrate the same attributes within Christianity as certain right-wing groups exhibit in Islam. Between the US and the Middle East there seems to be a polarisation, where the Middle Ground gets ignored. To put it bluntly, there seems to me to be an over-arching 'Old Testament' eye-for-an-eye literalism about American Christianity, as if they'd not quite listened to Christ at all. As I've said before, there seems to be a tendency to see Christ as something of a sheriff from the movies, someone like John Wayne. If I was being utterly irreverent I'd say I'm waiting the day when there's a scene in a movie where the Crucified Saviour looks down from the cross and says 'I'll be back."

Then look at Westboro Baptist Church! Good God Almighty!

Quite frankly it is my belief that there is now, and has been for some time, a fundamentalist Christian war against America. We see it over and over again where conservative governors and congressmen pass laws that make their version of religion the law of the land.

I feel for you guys, I really do, and I do shake my head at those fundamental elements, left and right, who so distort the message. It seems the Liberal left is dying on its legs, whilst the conservative right is, as you say, becoming more and more entrenched.

To be honest, I don't see any alleviation of the position whilst global economics remains as shaky as it has been these few decades passed, and my outlook for global economics is equally bleak.

 

[Devils' Advocate]

What does frighten me however is that the right wing Christian brigade, which as a Christian I've criticised time and again, demonstrate the same attributes within Christianity as certain right-wing groups exhibit in Islam.

Oh yes. I have made this point that the elements of religious extremism in America has many parallels to the Islamic ones. People are outraged when I make this comment publicly. It's the same old it's wrong when they are doing it, but it is right when we are doing it. Yet Islamic extremists are forcing their version of religion on everyone else. So are most of the state governors and congress here. Different tactics perhaps, but same goals.

They also are outraged by the comparisons to the level of violence - Christians here don't see themselves slaughtering people like ISIS does. Well 100,000 Iraqi civilians where killed by 'collateral damage' in W's Iraq war. A case could be made that ISIS are amateurs compared to us.

Was that a religious event? In many ways it was. George W often thought of himself as doing God's work, and stated that, although his administration did their best to keep it under wraps.

And the ultimate irony of the Iraq war? Iraq was the only (far as I know) country in the region that was run by secular authority rather than religious authority. By 'liberating Iraq' we have turned it into another country ruled by religious authority. Great job there.

 

[Thomas]

Was that a religious event? In many ways it was. George W often thought of himself as doing God's work, and stated that, although his administration did their best to keep it under wraps.

So did Tony Blair. And got himself elect Peace Envoy to the Middle East, to which the obviously reply is: WTF?!

 

[shunyadragon]

There is

Quite, although I would posit that the liberals are just the other extreme of the fundies, and both are as intransigent in their own way.

I don't like discussing nationalist issues, as the majority audience here is American, I'm not.

What does frighten me however is that the right wing Christian brigade, which as a Christian I've criticised time and again, demonstrate the same attributes within Christianity as certain right-wing groups exhibit in Islam. Between the US and the Middle East there seems to be a polarisation, where the Middle Ground gets ignored. To put it bluntly, there seems to me to be an over-arching 'Old Testament' eye-for-an-eye literalism about American Christianity, as if they'd not quite listened to Christ at all. As I've said before, there seems to be a tendency to see Christ as something of a sheriff from the movies, someone like John Wayne. If I was being utterly irreverent I'd say I'm waiting the day when there's a scene in a movie where the Crucified Saviour looks down from the cross and says 'I'll be back."

Then look at Westboro Baptist Church! Good God Almighty!


I feel for you guys, I really do, and I do shake my head at those fundamental elements, left and right, who so distort the message. It seems the Liberal left is dying on its legs, whilst the conservative right is, as you say, becoming more and more entrenched.

To be honest, I don't see any alleviation of the position whilst global economics remains as shaky as it has been these few decades passed, and my outlook for global economics is equally bleak.

There is a difference in religious culture between the British Isles and Western and Northern Europe, and the United States and much of the third world evangelized by Conservative Christians. The British Isles and much or Western Europe, but not all, are moderate to liberal Roman and Protestant Christians. The United States rural farm region was settled by more conservative rebellious Protestants like the Baptists. Conservative millennial faiths like the Jehovah Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists formed and grew in America. The Conservative Christian fundamentalists now dominate Christianity in America, and growing worldwide. Eastern Europeans also growing more conservative as the polls show.

What I believe is the Revelation of the OT and NT is deficient allowing for this conservative interpretation based legitimately on Biblical scripture.

 

[shunyadragon]

The influence of Platonism on Christianity:

Dean Inge, the famous professor of divinity, writes that:

“Platonism is part of the vital structure of Christian theology . . . . [If people would read Plotinus, who worked to reconcile Platonism with Scripture,] they would understand better the real continuity between the old culture and the new religion, and they might realize the utter impossibility of excising Platonism from Christianity without tearing Christianity to pieces. The Galilean Gospel, as it proceeded from the lips of Jesus, was doubtless unaffected by Greek philosophy . . . . But [early Christianity] from its very beginning was formed by a confluence of Jewish and Hellenic religious ideas.” (Emphasis added)

If you’re interested in Christianity’s origins, there are some very good reasons to be interested in Platonism:

• Plato understood the self as divided between body and soul, with the soul more closely related to goodness and truth; this made Christianity’s later soul-body division easier to understand. (Some early Christians, like Justin Martyr, even regarded the Platonists as unknowing proto-Christians, though this conclusion was later rejected.)
• Plato’s theory of forms prefigured the Christian understanding of heaven as a perfect world, of which the physical realm is a mere imitation.
• Both worldviews assume the existence of absolute truth and unchanging reality; again, Plato’s thought helped prepare people for Christianity.
• Augustine, at the end of a line of influence that began with Plato and passed through Plotinus, understood logic and reasoning—disciplines concerned with absolute truth—as important complements, not enemies, of faith. That faith-reason partnership would characterize Christianity through at least Kierkegaard. (Francis Schaeffer argues that the early existentialist brought modernity past the “line of despair” by conceiving of Christianity as accessible only through a leap of faith, beyond reasoning.)

 

[Thomas]

Dean Inge wrote: "Platonism is part of the vital structure of Christian theology ...[/quote]
Yes. Evident and never been questioned.

"[If people would read Plotinus, who worked to reconcile Platonism with Scripture,]" – not sure where this came from? Inge was writing in the 19th century, so might not have had the scholarly materials we have today. Plotinus was not a Christian, nor was Christian doctrine a concern of his.

Plato understood the self as divided between body and soul, with the soul more closely related to goodness and truth; this made Christianity’s later soul-body division easier to understand.

Actually it made an erroneous reading of a soul-body a constant problem. Christianity is not a dualist system, and follows the Hebrew, not the Hellenic, idea of body and soul as one corporate entity, as stated in Scripture. Thus the doctrine of resurrection, which is of the body, not just the re-incorporation of the soul (as in reincarnation or metempsychosis). One needs to understand the use of body sarx v soul psyche in its pastoral teaching, and the idea of the body soma in its theology. St Paul makes this distinction.

Plato’s theory of forms prefigured the Christian understanding of heaven as a perfect world, of which the physical realm is a mere imitation.

Again, not the Christian view.

Augustine, at the end of a line of influence that began with Plato and passed through Plotinus ...

Hmmm. Augustine began life as a Manichean, and unhappy with its overt dualism, moved to Platonism, which he found more fulfilling, but finally unsatisfactory. It was St Ambrose of Milan (who also had a Platonist background) who brought Augustine from Plato to Christ.

Eusebius of Caesarea
“[Plato is] the only Greek who has attained the porch of (Christian) truth.” Good way of putting it – Plato gets you to the porch, Christ gets you in.

Clement of Alexandria
“. . . ]For [philosophy] was a schoolmaster to bring ‘the Hellenic mind . . . to Christ.’ – ditto.

So it's clear that the Fathers saw Plato as a preparation for the theologian. The point here is that the Fathers believed that Christian Revelation was not illogical nor irrational – as its adversaries claimed – and that if it was reasonable, logical and rational, it could be argues with reason and logic, and the Platonic system was the best and broadest philosophical approach.

If Christianity was influenced by Plato, St Paul was influenced by Stoicism, as the pseudo-correspondence between St Paul and Seneca evidences. Seneca was another who the Fathers thought was a Christian in everything but the knowledge of Christ. Tertullian speaks of him as a writer who is 'often one of ours.' Lactantius wrote: "Seneca could have been a true devotee of God if someone had shown God to him" (Inst 6.24).

The letters were known as early as Jerome, who was convinced that there was a real affinity between Seneca and Christianity, so much so that he included Seneca among the 'famous men' of the Christian religion. This correspondence, consistent of eight letters from Seneca and six from Paul, "...are not especially interesting and contains nothing more than an exchange of polite greetings. Even though it makes rather disappointing reading, it enjoyed a certain fame subsequently." (Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, vol. 1, p. 405)

The letters are dated around the 4th century.