Is Christianity something other than a religion?

Allow me to elucidate, please:

I brought up my car's starting precisely because I believe that faith should never be blind. If it is, then it is totally ephemeral; it cannot be rationally defended.

I have faith--but not blind faith--that my car will start when I place the key in the ignition, and turn it. A faith that is impervious to any rational defense is one that I do not wish to embrace--ever.

Actually, I would prefer to list that as another logical fallacy: circular reasoning (circulus in demonstrando).

 

In order to believe that you first have to believe in the fairy tale. And even the Bible says that people shouldn't believe in Jewish fairy tales.

 

Never thought about this before. It's the way, the truth, and the life. So, I guess.

 

Hm.

A lot of Evangelicals equate religion with ceremony and pagreantry, and since they hate those things, they wish to not be called "religious." Also, their view of Xtianity is one lacking ceremony and pageantry, so, in their minds, calling Xtianity "religion" is incorrect.

It's still a religion, though.

Except your belief in Xtianity.

 

All religions are about "faith without evidence."

 

Not only are Xtian claims unverifiable, they're contradictory. Notice how, among the four gospels, the level of in inconsistency/contradiction is proportonate to the degree of an alleged event's absurdity. For example, the gospels are pretty consistent on the ho-hum details of Jesus' life yet are totally contradictory on the Resurrection details.

 

I am quite unsure as to what you might mean here.

Would you elucidate, please?

For openers, I am wondering if your corruption of the term, "Christianity" (you have somewhat ostentatiously replaced Christ with an "X") is meant to be indicative of your contempt for Christianity.

More to the point, I agree with those evangelicals that "ceremony" and "pageantry" have no place in the church. (I do not read of any such thing in the New Testament.)

Of course not.

What I said, I meant. Entirely.

No exceptions.

 

If B.H. Streeter was correct, almost a century ago, in his analysis of the Synoptic Gospels--basically, that Mark was the first to be written; that Matthew used Mark as one base, and an undiscovered source document, known as "Q" as another base, plus a second source document (of Jerusalem origin), known as "M" as yet another base (which gives Matthew its peculiarly Jewish flavor); and that Luke uses Mark, plus "Q," plus another source document, known as "L"; then this pretty much obviates the problem you describe.

 

While faith in the performance of an inanimate object with no will of its own may be "rationally defensible", it hardly compares to faith in One Whose will is most emphatically His own. Perhaps you'd like to make the case that the latter can be "rationally defended"?

 

Is Christianity something other than a religion?

When Christianity became the "official" religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine in the early 300's AD, the new Roman Church leadership was instructed to use church teachings to help unite the empire. The official church became a tool of the state, and Christianity has never severed that political connection. It is still apparent even in our own nation with the political clout of the Evangelicals. Generally speaking, traditional Christianity is seldom Christlike. Why? Have you ever wondered why the Christian Bible contains only two books written by members of Jesus' hand-picked disciples? Jesus made it clear he wanted his disciples to carry his teachings to the world after his death, but when the Bible was assembled by the Roman church authorities about 325 AD, the writings attributed to most of Jesus' disciples was rejected in favor of those that kept the church firmly in charge of any person's hope of salvation. The price Christianity paid for legal acceptance by the ruling authorities of Rome was to become part of the established political bureaucracy. It is a path traced time and again by every major religion trying to attain legitimacy and authority.

 

I think I already have. (Have you not been keeping up with this thread?)

Let me state emphatically--and without reservation--that any blind faith in Christianity is rationally indefensible; and I am guided by rational principles, in all matters. No exceptions.

 

I've hardly read every post, but if your responses to me can be taken as representative, I daresay you've done a thoroughly miserable job of it.

Even granting this dubious assertion, given John 20:29, this might be a good time for you to reflect on whether "rational defensibility" is all it's cracked up to be.

 

Lol, "Just stop thinking critically and you'll see I'm right."

 

It's obvious that the gospel writers imbued their tales with exaggeration and lies. Consider the place where Matthew descibes Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem on two animals, whereas the other gospels describe him riding one animal. Matthew was clearly trying to make Jesus' life story fit what he perceived to be OT prophecy, but did so based on a humorous reading that essentially turns his Jesus into a circus performer.

 

I'm atheist now, so I have no foot in the debate among the various Xtian branches. When I was a believer, I spent years seeking the "true" church, which led me into all sorts of interesting reading material. What I'm saying is that Protestantism is an essentially indefensible theological proposition. Your belief in sola scriptura has many logical holes, the least of which is simply the fact that the Xtian communities Paul writes to have no Bible upon which to "base" their worship. We know from the writings of Xtians in the generation immediately after Paul's (e.g., Ignatius of Antioch) that the early church had bishops and the Eucharist and so on. So why doesn't Paul mention aspects of daily Xtian life? Well, there would've been no point in describing to them what they already practiced.

The TL;DR version:

Xtianity isn't based on the Bible; the Bible is based on Xtianity.

 

I am well aware of that piece of Scripture. It very well represents just why "Doubting" Thomas is my favorite disciple--easily.

I will reiterate my former point: I find blind faith to be entirely indefensible, intellectually. (No doubt, there were some in the South, in the early 1860s, who had a blind faith that the Confederacy would win the Civil War. That is just about how much blind faith is worth, it seems to me.)

 

This does not strike me as being an analytical (and intellectual) assessment, but an anti-Christian assessment. (You have simply ignored the fact that Matthew may well be borrowing from a source document.)

 

This is a mere rant; and unresponsive to my questions.

If you will respond, then I will also respond to you.

 

Indeed, your affinity for Thomas is beyond dispute; your affinity for Christ, not so much.

Yes, you are proving to be a great one for mindless, blockheaded repetition.

OTOH, Christ clearly implied there are those with blind faith who are blessed, whereas, at least as of their last recorded conversation, Thomas was not.

 

You seem unfamiliar with what scholarship says about the Bible.

 

I'm not interested in your religious nonsense. So don't worry about responding to me.

 

Let's see:

I am (ex hypothesi) "mindless."

I am also deemed to be "blockheaded."

And my "affinity for Christ" is questionable.

Is there really some reason why I should continue to converse with someone who deals in ad hominem attacks?

 

Do you consider B.H. Streeter (whose Four-Source Q Theory I mentioned) to not have been a part of "scholarship"?

Or do you simply believe that all serious scholars march in lockstep, in their rejection of the Bible? (Be very careful here, that you do not fall victim to the logical fallacy known as "No True Scotsman."

 

Works for me.

 

I didn't say any of that, of course; but I can't say the distortion comes as a surprise.

You betcher sweet bippy it is, by your own testimony.

Since the question has nothing to do with me, I have no reason to give a damn. You're welcome.