Jesus the man or Jesus the Son of God

[Hashi Lebwohl]

You're not here to have a conversation, rus -- you're here to try to convert people. The above pretty much sums up how I feel about that.

I cannot answer for Rus, of course, but that blog entry explains why I don't bother trying to "convert" anyone. There is no more certain way to disuade someone from choosing something than by trying to tell them how much they need whatever it is you are telling them.

There are only a few New Testament commandments: love God, love others, and tell others about Christ. Notice that there is no commandment to convert people.

Even though I am a believer, hearing other people trying to "stuff Jesus down someone's throat" (to paraphrase Ms. Hecate from her blog) makes me roll my eyes and wonder why that person is trying to drive people away. It is no wonder that so many people dislike evangelical Christians--they are too pushy.

No, I am not like many other Christians. *shrug*

[rusmeister]

I stand corrected about the contents of the Torah. But Genesis is definitely included, from what you all have said. So my comment stands -- the God who says "we" in the story of Adam and Eve is the Jewish God, not the Christian Triune God.

Well, being a neo-pagan, I'd think you wouldn't believe that that particular god, claiming to be One God, exists at all and so didn't say anything.

I don't have a problem with admitting that your God exists. You're the one with the problem -- refusing to acknowledge the existence of all the other gods.

As for "if you would just read Lewis, you'd convert,"


You're not here to have a conversation, rus -- you're here to try to convert people. The above pretty much sums up how I feel about that.

Hi Ali,
We hold that the Christian triune God IS the God described in the Old Testament. He is described more completely in the New Testament and the rest of Orthodox Tradition.

I did not say that you, or everyone, would convert; I suggested that a small number might - if they found what was being said to be true. I suggested that a larger number would not agree.

I can't convert others. I can argue as to whether a thing is true or not - and the most devastating thing is to show, at least to the general public, that the common arguments against the Christian faith can be shown to be superficial and easily debunked - arguments, not as scientific proof, but as evidence that there is a peculiar and enraged bias against it - one willing to contradict itself, adopt any position at all and believe in anything at all, in order to contradict the Christian faith. People are tired of hearing what they have never heard

If anyone responds to Lewis - even if only to intelligently disagree, the level of discussion of Jesus Christ will be raised.

I realize that you won't like any assertions of mine that contradict yours. It's inevitable. Nevertheless I insist that they are actually true, and not merely my personal feeling about things.

[rusmeister]

You're not here to have a conversation, rus -- you're here to try to convert people. The above pretty much sums up how I feel about that.

I cannot answer for Rus, of course, but that blog entry explains why I don't bother trying to "convert" anyone. There is no more certain way to disuade someone from choosing something than by trying to tell them how much they need whatever it is you are telling them.

There are only a few New Testament commandments: love God, love others, and tell others about Christ. Notice that there is no commandment to convert people.

Even though I am a believer, hearing other people trying to "stuff Jesus down someone's throat" (to paraphrase Ms. Hecate from her blog) makes me roll my eyes and wonder why that person is trying to drive people away. It is no wonder that so many people dislike evangelical Christians--they are too pushy.

No, I am not like many other Christians. *shrug*

Perhaps surprisingly, I agree with this as written.

I don't see my own input and what I advocate as "attempting to convert". I see it as "attempting to convince" of certain truths - the ones that I think can be demonstrated. Things like faith, the actual choice, the leap of faith, cannot be, so there I stand back. But can I demonstrate that a lot of uncommon nonsense is spoken about traditional Christianity - that which really does stretch back to the first century AD? You bet your booties I can. People can ignore it, reject it - and I can't convert them. But for people who ARE intellectually honest, it might offer something that might eventually lead them to conversion (and it's kind of fun, mostly effortless, or at least involves the kind of effort I enjoy the most, and with good and courteous people around - when we disagree courteously - it is mostly quite enjoyable, even when we disagree. At times it gets more acidic - and then I try to avoid those exchanges - it IS useless when a person's ears are closed. That goes for me as much as for anyone else - the only contribution I'd make there is that our minds can be closed in a good sense, and we do close our minds when we are certain of something - and this is virtuous, if the thing is actually true.

[I'm Murrin]

You can talk all you like about how christianity has been misunderstood or misrepresented in arguments, that's fine, you're just defining your beliefs and improving others' understanding of them.

But honestly, that is all that you can accomplish with the arguments you make here. Making people understand you better won't change the fundamental underlying belief one has to possess to accept your truth - that there is a creator.

That decision is something too big to be altered by intimate knowledge of a particular religion's ins and outs. I doubt true conversion ever occurs except through some very significant psychological event.


As an aside, your last line is once again a subtly insulting one to those who don't share your beliefs. You're defining close-mindedness as a fault only in those who don't agree with you and as a virtue in those who do.

[rusmeister]

You can talk all you like about how christianity has been misunderstood or misrepresented in arguments, that's fine, you're just defining your beliefs and improving others' understanding of them.

But honestly, that is all that you can accomplish with the arguments you make here. Making people understand you better won't change the fundamental underlying belief one has to possess to accept your truth - that there is a creator.

That decision is something too big to be altered by intimate knowledge of a particular religion's ins and outs. I doubt true conversion ever occurs except through some very significant psychological event.


As an aside, your last line is once again a subtly insulting one to those who don't share your beliefs. You're defining close-mindedness as a fault only in those who don't agree with you and as a virtue in those who do.

Hi Murrin,
There is a definite and definable thing as established historical facts, and of course, the interpretations made from them.

It would certainly change the outlook of many here if they realized that they were suckers for a snow job of propaganda against the Christian faith - they would at the very least be more favorably inclined toward it even if they viewed it as a mistake - as I do the Roman Catholic Church - I see the RCC as the one untrue faith that is the most completely true.

I deny your last comment as completely untrue - I think it fair-minded of me to admit that others can see me as closed-minded as I see them as closed-minded, and that the question is which of us has it right. Insisting one is right may cause others to be emotionally distressed at the suggestion that they are in the wrong - but that is not insult in any kind of sense of vice or sin, any more than it is insulting to say that flat-earthers are wrong. The flat-earthers may be shocked at the implication that they are in possession of error, but it is not "insult" on the part of people who say that it is so.

[Fist and Faith]

That goes for me as much as for anyone else - the only contribution I'd make there is that our minds can be closed in a good sense, and we do close our minds when we are certain of something - and this is virtuous, if the thing is actually true.

And how do you distinguish between what you think is actually true, and what is actually true, if it happens that they are not the same thing? And how do we distinguish between what you insist is actually true, and what is actually true? Or is it not possible that what you think is actually true isn't?

[rusmeister]

You can talk all you like about how christianity has been misunderstood or misrepresented in arguments, that's fine, you're just defining your beliefs and improving others' understanding of them.

But honestly, that is all that you can accomplish with the arguments you make here. Making people understand you better won't change the fundamental underlying belief one has to possess to accept your truth - that there is a creator.

That decision is something too big to be altered by intimate knowledge of a particular religion's ins and outs. I doubt true conversion ever occurs except through some very significant psychological event.

Thanks, Murrin! I quite agree.

As an aside, your last line is once again a subtly insulting one to those who don't share your beliefs. You're defining close-mindedness as a fault only in those who don't agree with you and as a virtue in those who do.

Of course I do. If a person has the audacity to think that they are right about something, then it is logical. But it is not insult, unless, I suppose, if it were a lifting up of the person who insists on being right as somehow being therefore a better person - something which I deny to be the case. But if you say that the speed of light is 100,000 miles per hour, or that Krypton will not explode, and I say that you are wrong, that is not insult (or if I say such things and you tell me that I am wrong). I am not insulted by being told that I am wrong. If anything CAN be shown, then I show it.
It CAN be shown, for example, that Christian history is poorly known and that there IS a peculiar bias against Christian faith in western culture that people do not have against other major world religions - by virtue of the fact that they grow up exposed in one way or another to the versions of Christian faith found in the culture they are born into. It CAN be shown that there IS a moral compass, and I have done so (that Fist denies it does not mean that it has not been shown). It CAN be shown that there is a major branch of Christianity that lies completely outside the parameters of western culture, of which most are completely ignorant, and that in so being, their preconceptions are challenged, for they are inapplicable to a great extent to this thing that is the Eastern Church.

But yes, I agree with you - once all that is shown, certainly people can reject it and go their own way. I see that as God's magnanimous gift of free will, which allows us to go even to hell in our own handbasket, so that we might be free to choose what is good, what is right, what is beautiful and what is true.

[rusmeister]

That goes for me as much as for anyone else - the only contribution I'd make there is that our minds can be closed in a good sense, and we do close our minds when we are certain of something - and this is virtuous, if the thing is actually true.

And how do you distinguish between what you think is actually true, and what is actually true, if it happens that they are not the same thing? And how do we distinguish between what you insist is actually true, and what is actually true? Or is it not possible that what you think is actually true isn't?

Well obviously, if I actually think it true, then I am NOT going to distinguish, for I see it to be the same thing. If something is actually true, then you cannot distinguish it from truth. That is the question - what is true? - and what the struggle to cut through the million falsehoods is all about. What some people see to be true must NOT be true (speaking about absolute, ultimate truth), and therefore some people are certainly wrong. We disagree about whose ideas are wrong.

(Is that not at least reasonable?)

[Hashi Lebwohl]

And how do you distinguish between what you think is actually true, and what is actually true, if it happens that they are not the same thing? And how do we distinguish between what you insist is actually true, and what is actually true? Or is it not possible that what you think is actually true isn't?

We can easily define "objective truth" thusly: something is objectively true even if it we stop believing that it is true. Consider the statement "2 + 2 = 4". Even if you don't believe in mathematics at all, it will remain true that if I take two blocks and combine them with two more blocks I will wind up with four blocks.

Some things that are true for me--things that are objectively true--include "my coffee cup is half full right while I type this" or "I am wearing a green shirt". Whether you believe them or not is irrelevant--they are true.

Some things are not objectively true, even though I believe them. I believe I am the best candidate for the job for which I interviewed last Wednesday. We'll just have to see about that, won't we?

Religious beliefs fall into the "not objectively true" category. They cannot be proven objectively and they cannot be disproved objectively, which is why they rely on faith alone.

[rusmeister]

And how do you distinguish between what you think is actually true, and what is actually true, if it happens that they are not the same thing? And how do we distinguish between what you insist is actually true, and what is actually true? Or is it not possible that what you think is actually true isn't?

We can easily define "objective truth" thusly: something is objectively true even if it we stop believing that it is true. Consider the statement "2 + 2 = 4". Even if you don't believe in mathematics at all, it will remain true that if I take two blocks and combine them with two more blocks I will wind up with four blocks.

Some things that are true for me--things that are objectively true--include "my coffee cup is half full right while I type this" or "I am wearing a green shirt". Whether you believe them or not is irrelevant--they are true.

Some things are not objectively true, even though I believe them. I believe I am the best candidate for the job for which I interviewed last Wednesday. We'll just have to see about that, won't we?

Religious beliefs fall into the "not objectively true" category. They cannot be proven objectively and they cannot be disproved objectively, which is why they rely on faith alone.

I agree with this, if "religious belief" is defined. It is historically certain that a man called Jesus lived in first century Galilee (if we accept that anything at all can be historically certain), and that there were Christian bishops writing about Christian practices in the first and second centuries (Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, etc) - this does not require religious belief to accept. That a great many of these men put their lives on the line and accepted torture and death for something which they claimed to have directly witnessed, or knew someone personally who made those claims, is also not "religious belief". It is the curious facts which are objective - and usually ignored/not much in public awareness - which point to faith.

Scientists infer black holes, not from direct observation, but from the behavior of astronomical bodies which strongly suggests/points to the existence of the thing that cannot be directly seen. They are not ridiculed with accusations of 'blind religious faith'. Now I do think that faith in some things is a necessary step. But there are a great many things which do not require that faith, which strongly suggest the truth of the Christian faith (which I identify as most faithfully handed down in Orthodoxy).

[Fist and Faith]

Yes, rus, it is a fact that many people have, and many people throughout the last 2,000 years have had, faith in certain ideas. It is also true that some people have died, even horribly, rather than denounce their faith.

[rusmeister]

Yes, rus, it is a fact that many people have, and many people throughout the last 2,000 years have had, faith in certain ideas. It is also true that some people have died, even horribly, rather than denounce their faith.

But when they claimed to have objectively witnessed an event - as Peter, James, Andrew, Paul and so on did, and then so did the people who personally knew them, then it's not some kind of blind faith, is it? The conversion of Saul/Paul makes no sense at all - unless his story was true. he was a successful, intelligent member of the dominant class in his society. Why he should then proceed to abandon all that because of a vision - that left him blind for three days, witnessed by a number of skeptical people, and then DIE for that faith is something light years beyond the abstract thing you are trying to pigeonhole it into. It wouldn't even make sense if he had been high on drugs, because he would have had to remain high for the rest of his life. He was an extremely prolific and intelligent writer, and yet we have an independent report that King Agrippa - said that Paul (that man who would have to be religiously blind/insane by your lights) almost persuaded him to become a Christian.

[Fist and Faith]

I've known a lot of people who've claimed to have witnessed a lot of things I don't believe happened. I've even been present for some of them, and know full well they didn't happen as described. The idea of assuming that what was written 2,000 years ago accurately describes events that don't happen (at least they never happen within a few hundred miles of me) is daft. I believe the events of the Bible as I believe the events of books like the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power, and Conversations With God. And, for that matter, the words of Plato. Somebody said something a long time ago. Some of it pretty good stuff, imo. But I don't believe these exact words were spoken. I don't believe these impossible events take place.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Somebody said something a long time ago. Some of it pretty good stuff, imo. But I don't believe these exact words were spoken. I don't believe these impossible events take place.

No one is going to force you to believe them, either.

This brings us back to subjective reality, though. Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean that it isn't true. In the interest of being equitable, I agree that just because I believe something doesn't make it true for you.

I suspect there are things upon which we agree, such as "beer is good".

[Fist and Faith]

Actually, I hate beer. Can't stand alcohol in general. Don't now how people drink it!

But no, just because I don't believe it doesn't mean that it isn't true. It just means I have no reason to believe it is. Like I've often said, I don't say rus' beliefs aren't the fact of existence. That would require some sort of knowledge that I don't claim to have. I just don't believe they are. I believe the picture I have pieced together from 47 years of living, observing, talking, reading...

[rusmeister]

I've known a lot of people who've claimed to have witnessed a lot of things I don't believe happened. I've even been present for some of them, and know full well they didn't happen as described. The idea of assuming that what was written 2,000 years ago accurately describes events that don't happen (at least they never happen within a few hundred miles of me) is daft. I believe the events of the Bible as I believe the events of books like the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power, and Conversations With God. And, for that matter, the words of Plato. Somebody said something a long time ago. Some of it pretty good stuff, imo. But I don't believe these exact words were spoken. I don't believe these impossible events take place.

I think that if someone you TRUSTED witnessed something that sounded improbable, you would give a lot more credence - UNLESS skepticism is your ultimate dogma. WHEN something is written is irrelevant next to that. It couyld've been written three years ago and be equally daft - or reliable, based on whether you know the witness, and how well, or not.

Exact words? I think you have a point - in some cases. But the general sense of the words? That's a different matter altogether. If you dare to accept ANY history AT ALL as true, then you must accept the general sense of what is reported as having been said. From there it is a short step to events. You can only reject them out of hand if you have an unreasoning dogma AGAINST them possibly - ever - happening. Which puts you in the place of the unreasoning person and the person who accepts the evidence of their senses or of authority that they trust as more reasonable.

Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean that it isn't true.

While you apply this to what I believe, it is surely at least as applicable to what you believe.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Actually, I hate beer.

Wow. I didn't see that one coming.

While you apply this to what I believe, it is surely at least as applicable to what you believe.

True...but then our beliefs are not very dissimilar, except on maybe some of the finer details.

[rusmeister]

Actually, I hate beer.

Wow. I didn't see that one coming.

Yeah. Mega-heresy.

[Fist and Faith]

A couple of drunkards? Now things are making more sense!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

No, just drunk on the Spirit.

It is interesting, though, that the first recorded miracle Christ performs is converting water into wine at a wedding ceremony.

We are told, though, not to be drunk with wine to excess. We are not told "don't drink any of it at all".