Not a true Christian: Debate Christianity and Religion's role in Politics

God is dead?

 

Matthew 16:15-16 (I’m reading Matthew right now)

 

I only grew up Mormon and knocked doors for them for a couple of years, but I am pretty sure that whole time that I believed Jesus was born from immaculate conception and never sinned.

They believe that one must take on physical form to achieve “god-hood,” so basically Jesus, the greatest of all of us in the before-life, was the only being born of God on Earth, and then became an equal to God after the atonement and resurrection.

But yeah, God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate entities. Holy Ghost is weird though. Not sure if it ever had a corporeal body or no, or if that would wait until the end times. Never could get a straight answer on that one.

And now I couldn’t care much less.


Edit: you could also ask Ismitje. But I think it might not be prudent to ask a super-active and faithful
Mormon to join the convo.

 

I’ve tried, but the discrepancies between the various accounts and the changing character of Jesus annoyed me, and made me feel like the authors had incorporated too much cultural baggage to get a real felt sense of what Jesus was actually about.

But I acknowledge that Jesus was an impressive spiritual figure whose message of love shines through and whose life transformed history beyond possibly any other human. He’s the answer I always give when asked the question “If you could meet and talk with any human, living or dead, who would it be?”

 

I should clarify, ismitje would also be a good person to ask. Others, tread lightly.

 

As to the first paragraph, I lightly dabbled in theology before I committed to reading the Bible through. Since then it’s become my main reading interest. I want to understand my religion by shedding as much of that “cultural baggage” as possible.

As to the second, yeah, Jesus is my #1 just so I can clear up this argument once and for all. #2 would be an engaging, open Bob Dylan (not Surly Dylan). #3 would be Ogg from 30,000 BC…any Ogg will do.

 

...and an actor plays his part
His words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart
Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past, things can only get worse

SOO-NAH OR LEH-TAHHHH
SOO-NAH OR LEH-TAHHHH
SOO-NAH OR LEH-TAHHHH
SOO-NAH OR LEH-TAHHHH

 

A book that you pick and choose from based on what conforms to your opinions about what you think your deity should be like based on modern 21st century understandings.

 

Remind me the droning about being a monotheistic religion

 

Not to mention that its contents were picked and chosen from what conformed to the opinion of certain councils about what they thought their (our?) deity should be like based on 4th and 5th century understandings.

 

You should read that Ehrman book.

It’s not as simple as you portray here, to say the least.

 

Off course it isn't. The point is that the book and their understanding of what happened 2000 years ago is (as with most of human recounts) flawed, as in defined by the perceptions of those who saw it, those who passed the stories to the writers, those who decided whose stories to incorporate into the book (over the course of centuries) and the multiple interpretations during the long history of the church, including the numerous schisms, and the uncountable variants and cults that are still around today.

 

You IC's have to make every subject about you.

 

The reason I am mistrustful of anyone who says, "It says right here in the Bible that [whatever I want to cherry-pick to support my view] is that it is a text written over a long period of time, by many different authors in at least 4 different languages. And of course, during the Middle Ages, priests (who were the only literate people at the time) made edits and footnotes as they saw fit that got incorporated.

What I know about translation is that there is a LOT of discretion involved as to the meanings of translated words, the context and the more subtle interpretations. How many terms found in the Bible need to be explained because the English translation doesn't fully do it justice?

 

Add to that the oral tradition on how a story is being told, differs from the Middel East to that of Europe.
Iirc in the ancient Middel East tradition the plot is given away already at the start of a story and then the story unfolds to that plot.
In contrast to the "western" tradition of being kept in suspension about how the story ends.

 

<sigh>
True, but we don’t live in the Middle Ages, and it’s been 5 centuries since scholars went back to the oldest texts they could find. All that stuff got unincorporated.

 

I don't think anyone knows, for absolute certainty, that all that stuff got unincorporated.

 

Sure they do…if translators are consulting texts from before the Middle Ages, then things incorporated after those texts aren’t magically reappearing in modern translations.

 

Which one did they go back to? The Bible has been rewritten and revised hundreds of times. To say any one version is the original is just poppycock.

It's like playing telephone with your kids. By the time you get to the end, the story is completely different.

 

I doubt it.

Certainly, horrific mistranslations survive to this day. Nobody lived on "honey and locust;" but the Aramaic term used there translates literally as "honey locust" and means "carob." God did not give man "dominion" over the Earth; the term there meant "wardenship." We were supposed to take care of the Earth and all that is in it. He's gonna be pissed if he asks where the white rhinos and passenger pigeons are...

 

But are those more sophisticated modern translations the ones most Americans are actually reading, or that are being used in the majority of churches?

 

I enjoyed this translation.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Discord-Erasmus-Luther-Western/dp/1538480263

 

Yes. Nobody is using 600 year old Bibles, in large part because “most Americans” can’t read Latin.

Do you guys not know that Bibles that old, in Europe, were all in Latin? It was only about 500 years ago that Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. Before then they had to read it in Latin.

 

Yeah Dave, when I would visit family in Germany in the late 70's, mass was still said in Latin in my father's hometown. You aren't telling us anything we didn't already know.

My point is, every time there is a translation, it gets changed.