Ms. Meirs has called it quits. Big surprise.So here’s a contest! Pick the next nominee before s/he’s named and win a free 6-month membership to American Atheists! Comments are also welcome, but ya can’t with this contest without a guess!My guess: someone moderate and popular (yeah right!)
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probally sen tor beninator nelson nebraska when ever bush is around ben is on his knees
“I’ll be back” or “Go ahead punk make my day” you never know hollywood had spawned presidents why not supreme court judges.
I hope i’m wrong. If I win I wish to donate my prize to the first of any religion to denounce their god on this blog.
reluctantatheist:
Could have. But we must be cautious… there?s a very real danger there that we could end up repealing the “absolute” that Christians are utterly devoid of humor, and thereby start the unraveling of the fabric of the universe.
If I had the time, I?d like nothing more than to disseminate all that I know about the differences between Mormonism and Christianity here, but like you said, doing so would hijack this thread.
Exactly which point would that be?:
or
The ridiculousness of the first ,I believe I demonstrated, the second can be verified readily enough by simple web searches (may I suggest you start with one run by a former Temple Mormon: http://www.saintsalive.com/), or could it just be your asinine notion about ?absolutes? in general?
jcc:
It would be this 1:
“Exactly which point would that be?:
Your party consists of a bunch of fat-cat Xtians”
As I have amply demonstrated that ‘bunch’ is not an absolute noun, but the definition is referring to a majority. See my post on the definition of ‘bunch’, please. There IS admittedly a difference between a ‘bunch’, & ‘all’. Since we’re splitting semantical hairs, as it were.
& it is a minor point, after all. I shan’t think less of you if you cede this.
jcc:
“there?s a very real danger there that we could end up repealing the “absolute” that Christians are utterly devoid of humor”
???? Absolute? Are you for real? I’ve never said or stipulated this. Most of your posts are EXACTINGLY serious. So it’s rare moment when you do joke around (but hey, I can be wrong on occasion).
Did you ever post a joke on the old Joke thread? I really can’t recall.
I was on the Raving Atheist, & I actually managed to get 2 of them to TELL jokes.
For that matter, I don’t ever recall you being whimsical, or silly, or anything else but serious on this blog. That’s just you. I have a good friend who’s BAX, he calls me once a week, we’re always laughing.
Really, you need to loosen up once in a while, that’s all.
jcc:
I think you WERE joking again, weren’t you? Like I said, you’re always so dead-pan serious, & there’s no tonal inflection when you post something, so my pardon. I think.
reluctantatheist:
Semantics in the English language is a difficult beast to tame. It wasn?t your use of ?bunch? in that sentence that imparted its obviously unintended meaning, it was the verb consists. Contextually, consists is the semantic equivalent to is in your sentence and easily gives the connotation of being all-inclusive. Bunch merely served as a descriptor of the party?s magnitude.
I simply responded to your sentence?s most obvious meaning.
By the way, I was joking? Granted, it?s rare that I do that here, and I?d like to do it more, but fear being (like you were) misinterpreted and then have to re-explain myself when I don’t have that much free time to post.
jcc: Duly noted.
answers.com – consists –
“1. To be made up or composed: New York City consists of five boroughs. See Usage Note at include.
2. To have a basis; reside or lie: The beauty of the artist’s style consists in its simplicity.
3. To be compatible; accord: The information consists with her account.”
I looked it up as well (obviously).
“your asinine notion about ?absolutes? in general?”
Unclear as to what my notion about “absolutes” means to you? Since you posted ‘irrefutably’, well, that seems rather absolute to me.
Am I mistaken? How so?
reluctantatheist:
I used ?irrefutably? to mean exactly that; Christian theology is based on a closed canon. Mormonism, is based (originally) on Smith?s Book of Mormon and can therefore be said to be ?irrefutably? contrary to Christianity on this basis alone?but it is by no means the only basis?Mormonism is also a polytheistic religion, which is (again) ?irrefutably? contrary to Christianity. I use ?irrefutably? in the ?absolute? sense. Mormons will try to make a case for their religion being a form of Christianity?but only out of ignorance of Christian theology. No Christian Apologist will acknowledge Mormonism as such.
If ?absolutes? can exist inside computers then, logically, they can also exist for other conditions as well.
jcc:
So the short version is yes.
& there are absolutes in this life. No argument.
“could it just be your asinine notion about ?absolutes? in general?”
You have mistaken me for someone w/a baroque meritocracy, I think. Yes, there are indeed absolutes in this life. I wonder just exactly what you mean about my ‘asinine notions’?
Note: I think the trap jaws will snap on empty air, if I’m not mistaken about where this conversation will lead next.
jcc:
you said:
used ?irrefutably? to mean exactly that; Christian theology is based on a closed canon. Mormonism, is based (originally) on Smith?s Book of Mormon and can therefore be said to be ?irrefutably? contrary to Christianity on this basis alone?but it is by no means the only basis?Mormonism is also a polytheistic religion, which is (again) ?irrefutably? contrary to Christianity. I use ?irrefutably? in the ?absolute? sense. Mormons will try to make a case for their religion being a form of Christianity?but only out of ignorance of Christian theology. No Christian Apologist will acknowledge Mormonism
Well.
I wasn’t intending to jump into the middle of someone else’s conversation here, but I thought it might behoove you to study a little bit about that “closed canon” and theology to which you find the LDS to be so Antithetical.
You are correct when you state that Mormon’s will try to make a case for their religion being a form of Christianity. Indeed, you might as well have quoted Gordon B. Hinckley, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when he said:”We are Christians in a very real sense and that is coming to be more and more widely recognized. Once upon a time people everywhere said we are not Christians. They have come to recognize that we are, and that we have a very vital and dynamic religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
“We, of course, accept Jesus Christ as our Leader, our King, our Savior…the dominant figure in the history of the world, the only perfect Man who ever walked the earth, the living Son of the living God. He is our Savior and our Redeemer through whose atoning sacrifice has come the opportunity of eternal life.”
“Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pray and worship in the name of Jesus Christ. He is the center of our faith and the head of our Church. The Book of Mormon is Another Testament of Jesus Christ and witnesses of His divinity, His life, and His Atonement.”
About that closed canon and the poly-theism bit?
It is interesting that for nearly four to five hundred years Christianity was in a huge turmoil. Many Christians ? Gnostics, Arians, various Eastern churches, even Iraeneus for a while ? saw Christianity as a necessarily poly-theistic religion. It wasn’t until Constantine called the council of Nicea in 325 ? from which we have the Nicean Creed now recited every Sunday by those Christian churches who haven’t moved on to the Apostle’s Creed or some other “official closed cannon” creed ? that an “official” push was made to declare that Christianity was monotheistic and that declaration was really more to keep the church from falling apart in the face of advancing Manicheism than anything else. It should be noted at this point there was no official cannon.
The Catholic Church (one of the arguably most “direct” sources of Christianity) says this about Church Canon:
The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council (Council of Trent 1545, called to answer to the *Protestant Heresies*). Heck, the first time the canon appeared in anything like its modern form arrangement was 380-405 CE when Pope Innocent spooned the Vulgate out of Jerome. It took another 1150 years AFTER that for the Church to finally get to saying, “Yeah that’s it. Really. No more. Just accept it,” just so that they could have a reason to dislike the Protestants who, well, did not consider the church to be true Christians?
An excellent calendar of the development of the Canonical texts of the New Testament (although not including many that were rejected because of their political fire-brandidness) can be found at: http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ45.HTM
Christian Theology began well before Jerome ever walked the planet (with or without Innocent’s spooning him). I believe Church Theology probably first began with, well, Jesus. Unfortunately, none of his Theology was ever written down (unless one accepts the Gnostic Gospel of Truth from Nag Hammadi). The next closest thing we’ve got is Paul and his damn letters. Sadly, Paul’s theology was never codified. His letters only contain his exhortations to then nascent Christian Churches around the Mediterranean and most of those exhortations are contradicted from one Epistle to another ? just the sort of thing that allows for differing interpretations and, well, views of theology. Clearly, though, Christian theology was well-upon its way by the time Jerome got to scratching. With this in mind, if the canon did not appear in anything like its modern form until he started popping the tylenol to counter his sore wrist, then Christian Theology could NOT EVER have been based upon canon. More to the point, if the Canon was not OFFICIALLY CLOSED AND CANONIZED until 1545 at the Council of Trent (again, something Protestants still protest to this day) then there was in no way, no damn way in hell Christian Theology could be founded upon closed canon. The canon itself is a reflection of the ever-evolving theology. Any denial of such is, well, patently un-Christian. If Jesus really was the anti-dogmatic revolutionary the synoptic Gospels make him out to be, then a closure of canonical theology upon his teaching is something he’d start turning tables over about in the church courtyard.
Back to the Mormons.
No, back to the topic at hand and your patently insulting remark about the LDS. Okay, so they may be goofy. Heck, few Christians don’t hold goofy beliefs. But give them credit where credit is due: A Christian is a follower of Christ as savior, whether Christ be a wholly human revealer of the truth, a wholly deified god who just happened to play around pretending he was human, a god’s Pagels-ian child in mortal form dying as a way of showing that yes he means business, or the child of just another god, it doesn’t really matter. A follower of any of them is Christian.
Before you go spouting off about Mormons being ignorant of Christian Theology, perhaps you yourself should do a little more studying. At last count on the Catholic Encyclopedia, there are at least 168 differing Christian Churches in the United States alone. That’s, well, 168 differing theologies. All based on the same “closed canon.” You do the math.
Oh yeah?the thread-topic?
Alberto Gonzales. It really should be. It’ll kind of fit the whole, “You don’t anywhere unless you’ve worked for me” schtick. There’s also this currently un-employed former law professor from Arkansas who’s pretty well known to have both an extremely thoughtful mind and thorough-knowledge of the Constitution and all of its intricacies. Bill Clinton would be an interesting candidate. Doubtful Shrub-boy’d do it, but hey?Clinton does have a pretty darn close relationship with H.W. these days and that seems to be about all of the qualifications necessary for anybody Shrub-boy bothers to talk to.
Cheers,
soundeziner
Andy
The unofficial word: CNN reports that ?President Bush will nominate 3rd Circuit Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court.?
Looks as though I might win the First Blog Contest.
It is official. Scalito is the nominee.
As a married, white-male, plaintiff’s civil-rights litigator who is an atheist there are both good and bad things to come from this nomination.
Assuming he makes the bench (and, I’d bet he will) then things look grim for women, blacks, consumers as well as the condom and birth-control manufacturing pharamceutical industry.
Things are looking up for white males who want chattel rather than wives and Catholics.
Saying, “begone” to my law-professor spouse won’t get me too far – but all of those men out there who want to own the womb-holder for gestational purposes – things are looking up!
Seriously, this guy is really, really bad news. Miers was a far better option – at least for those of us who have to live and work in the US under the Bush Court.
The Court will now turn on the votes of: Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy, Roberts & Scalito. A 5-4 game of “who’s more conservative”?
Has anybody noticed the 41 new death-penalty offenses added to The Patriot Act and the reduction in jury size necessary to impose that penalty?
Not a law I want Scalito ruling on….
DARROW WINS! Congrats!
You get a free six-month membership in American Atheists! Not bad for a good guess! Please email info@atheists.org from the email ID you used for this blog (“emp”) to claim your free membership!
soundeziner:
Thanks for your pompously pedantic rant about the history of the canon?though I failed to see your point there (if you actually had one). But, somewhere in there you seemed to confirm that there is indeed a closed canon?and it?s one that predates Smith?s Book of Mormon by 300 years.
And I make no apologies about what I said about Mormons. My remarks are factually based and stand on their merit. Mormons are due no credit for being Christian no matter how you broaden the definition of Christian. To include a belief in any possibility other than Jesus Christ being the begotten Son of God?being both fully human and fully God demonstrates your lack of understanding of the Christian doctrine and faith. There are plenty of churches which try to emulate Christ?s teachings, but these too cannot be considered ?Christian? unless their doctrine includes the belief in: 1) the historic actuality of Christ?s virgin birth, 2) the historic actuality of His miracles as conveyed in the pages of the Holy Bible, 3) the efficacy of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ for our sins, and 4) the historic actuality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and his coming again. Aside from the closed canon argument, Mormons exclude themselves from this doctrine by their belief that Jesus Christ was once a mortal human being?and that God Himself was also, at one time, a mortal?clearly these are assertions that are antithetical to Christian doctrine.
I?ve done my homework on the Mormons, perhaps you should do yours.
Jcc
If “Christian Theology” (pick your flavor) predates a closed canon by more than 1500 years, it hardly be said to be BASED upon a closed canon.
The “Closed Canon” is not recognized by all Christian Churches universally ? I dare say the scriptures you pick up in A Lutheran Church will differ (albeit slightly) from those you pick up in an Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic. Even if the included texts remain the same, the recognition of the those texts differes from church to church.
And I’m sorry, but the very nature of the many schisms throughout the history of Christianity rest squarely upon the an understanding of just what and who Christ was. Paul himself did not ever speak of Christ’s “Virgin Birth”. Christ himself never mentioned a “Virgin Birth.” Augustine wrestled with just what a “virgin birth” meant and discussed it only because he was obssessed with his own failings as a sexual being trying to come to terms between the rationalism of his Manichaen faith and the Orthdoxy he wished to adopt in order to save his own hide. It’s pure pretty darn simple: Virgin birth is not something Christian Theology is FOUNDED and BASED upon. Something argued about and accepted by a few (and not others) centuries after the idea came up is not a qualifying foundation for a theology. It is a backwards-compatible rationalization.
As far as your requirements for being a Christian are concerned, they hardly gel with the 15-years of Catholic theology I’ve studied or the rather large stack of real historical texts lying upon my desk. The historical authenticity of the Bible is in strong question even among those who are its most diffident adherents. Just last month the Catholic Bishops Conference in Englad released study guidelines reminding the faithful that many stories in the Bible (i.e. Creation) are important for their moral truth but not as historical fact. Inter-denominational translations that are widely utilized by many Christian Churches (i.e. The New Jerusalem) recognize the impossibility of authenticating any historical saying or act of Jesus. It is far easier to document the travels and writings of Paul, Peter and James ? yet they all maintained differing theologies. When the first two hundred years of CHristianity had NO canon whatsoever, how can any rational being even begin to imagine that there is a canon for Theology to be based upon? Think about it in a simple, simple manner: If Christianity rests upon the teachings of a “closed canon”, and yet also rests firmly upon the teachings of a single man who was illiterate and left NO WRITINGS and was the subject of that “canon” written only decades after his death, where did his “closed canon” come from upon which he based his theology? It didn’t come from any canon. It couldn’t. Jesus’ canon, had he one, consisted of Rabbinical Law and Herbraic text, most of which we no longer have. How can one be so arogant as to presume what the Canon of Christ may have been? How can one be so arogant as to set onself up as the arbiter of who is/ is not Christian?
By the way, you have set up a wonderful tee and I’d like to see you swing for it: You note that “There are plenty of churches which try to emulate Christ?s teachings, but these too cannot be considered ?Christian? unless their doctrine includes the belief in: 1) the historic actuality of Christ?s virgin birth, 2) the historic actuality of His miracles as conveyed in the pages of the Holy Bible, 3) the efficacy of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ for our sins, and 4) the historic actuality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and his coming again. ”
Will you please list for me all of the current existant churches of which all of the following are applicable: 1) They were in existence as recognizable entity with an unbroken continuity from a time contemporaneous with Jesus until today (You know, that whole Apostolic Succession thing. Paul will be fine, even thought he never met Christ), 2) They are based upon, and solely upon, the Teachings of Christ (and only Christ) contained within the New Testament of a firmly established and recognizable Holy Bible (The Vulgate is fine, although incomplete. Perhaps one the varieites of King James would do at least for a moderately okay translation, although I do reccommend New Jersusalem for the accuracy of Greek to English, Koine is a bear to translate, but that doesn’t excuse the KJB for using a Latin go-between), 3) They contain a clearly defined theology that include no post Niceaen insertions. Okay, you can forget that last point, but given that the Orthodoxy was still in the minority at that time does make it a good requirement, albeit an un-fulfillable one.
It is kind of funny in that the idea of who and what just is a Christian should still be debated by Christians after thousands of years. To watch Augustine wrestled 1700 years ago with the nature of original sin and whether or not Christ did anything about (or if it even existed at all) and to see that some Christians are STILL trying to figure it out. Just what is a Christian? According to Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, they needed to be circumcised, by gum, by when he wrote to the Galatians he told them that any Christian who is circumcised is dead to Christ. So what of it? Was Pope John Paull II dead to Christ? What about Jerry Falwell (reportedly circumcised). And hey, Christ was circumcised (as a Jew). Does that mean he’s dead to himself?
By the way, I’m going back to my homework. I’ve got to finish the Confessions tonight and then go re-translate Corinthians. Paul invented a lot of words (or at least used them before anyone else) so it can be kind of tough.
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