Christianity Loopholes?!

[Guest KoR Fungus]

Agreed, I'm an atheist, and I know practically nothing about the details of Christianity, so I usually just stay out of these things.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

That's okay. Most of the Christians know "absolutely dick" too.

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

But I don't go around shitting on peoples' beliefs of which I know nothing about. I don't go after the atheists or act like an elitist. I never take the offensive in religious debates. I wait until someone says "watch Dogma" or "why are they deifying Christ" without knowing anything about the Holy Trinity.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Fair enough. I didn't really understand the "deification was a mistake" comment either.

[Guest gthureson]

The entire Holy Trinity thing was a creation of the Council of Nicea. Until the advent of Christianity as an organized religion, 'Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me' was pretty clear cut.

 

It meant exactly that.

 

However, as the Jews who bought into the Messiahness of Christ splintered farther and farther away from Judaism, Jesus of Nazareth became less and less of a human being sent by God, to being *a* god himself.

 

Now, lets revisit 'Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me' again, and try and pick out the problems with worshipping the Christ figure *over and above* Jehovah himself.

 

Which is when you get a whole bunch of important Catholics sitting around at Nicea trying to work out exactly who to get themselves out of this theological pickle. Because up until this point, no one was saying the Christ was a facet of God that was sent to earth. Christ was the human 'Son of God', more or less. More or less a Prophet, and maybe the Messiah. Depends on which Jews you ask about that. They were rather split about it at the time (main reason being....the Messiah doesn't die.)

 

But anyway, the settle on the Holy Trinity. That being the Holy Spirit, God and the Son are all aspects of the same thing, ergo, you aren't actually worshipping different deities, because they are all the same. Clever way around all of that.

 

And they also decided that is was okay to venerate Mary.

 

But the general upshot of all of this is that it changes the entire tone of Christian dogma. Instead of having a living and breathing *human* example of how you are supposed to behave, instead you have god on earth.

 

Yes, you should try and behave as Jesus did. But good freakin' luck, because he was God. You won't measure up, you are a sinner, he was perfect (though, the entire point of many stories was...he wasn't. He was tempted, made mistakes, but had a faith that saw him through it). Instead of having a human example. you have a godlike example which no one can match, because saying that you can be as good a person as Jesus is pretty much sacrilege and will lead to stonings.

 

Which leads to the absolution of sins becoming more important than not actually performing them in the first place. Because, no matter how hard you try, you ain't gonna make it to the big house. Thats the upshot of the deification of Christ. The idea that no human can be just in his life, no matter how hard he or she tries.

 

And yes, I understand the Holy Trinity and the rest of the dogma. But perhaps Christians should understand that entire canonical belief system of Roman Catholicism (and therefore, the Protestant Reformation splinter religions), does not spring fully formed in 32 AD when a Jewish prophet got nailed to a cross. That there were decisions on issues like this made at various canonical conferences as Rome got everybody on the same page.

 

Except for the Byzantines, who had serious issues with Rome.

[Guest DrTom]

"While making Jesus a human allows people to identify with him easier, it goes against two thousand years of Christian dogma.

 

How?"

 

Um... you don't *really* need me to explain this one to you, do you? Christian dogma states that while Jesus was human, he was also divine and part of the Holy Trinity, and to deny either half of his dual nature is considered blasphemy.

 

Never picked up that Catechism, eh? B)

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

"While making Jesus a human allows people to identify with him easier, it goes against two thousand years of Christian dogma.

 

How?"

 

Um... you don't *really* need me to explain this one to you, do you? Christian dogma states that while Jesus was human, he was also divine and part of the Holy Trinity, and to deny either half of his dual nature is considered blasphemy.

 

Never picked up that Catechism, eh? B)

I guess I assumed that the other guy meant "human and divine" when he just said human. Eh, you win some and you lose some

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

But perhaps Christians should understand that entire canonical belief system of Roman Catholicism (and therefore, the Protestant Reformation splinter religions), does not spring fully formed in 32 AD when a Jewish prophet got nailed to a cross. That there were decisions on issues like this made at various canonical conferences as Rome got everybody on the same page.

Obviously.

[Guest DrTom]

"But perhaps Christians should understand that entire canonical belief system of Roman Catholicism (and therefore, the Protestant Reformation splinter religions), does not spring fully formed in 32 AD when a Jewish prophet got nailed to a cross. That there were decisions on issues like this made at various canonical conferences as Rome got everybody on the same page."

 

Of course they should understand it. Like any mythology that eventually becomes monolithic in scope, the keepers of the word have to get together and come up with an official version so they can better tell everyone what to think.

[Guest NoCalMike]

How about the fact that Murder is a sin, yet God does plenty of murdering during Noah's Arc. Or the contradiction that everything is predetermined yet Man is responsible for his/her actions....yah many more contradictions. Just forget about organized religion and concentrate on making Earth a better place, because it is most likely the last place any of us will be.

[Guest DrTom]

"Or the contradiction that everything is predetermined yet Man is responsible for his/her actions...."

 

The doctrine of Predetermination or Predestination isn't an aspect of most Christian faiths. It's usually attributed to the Calvinists. Catholics and most Christian sects believe in the dogma of free will.

 

There's an obvious paradox involving an omniscient god and human free will, but I don't think that's what you were getting at.