From: ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO)
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas betray?
Organization: HFS, Inc., McLean VA
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 03:54:33 GMT

In article <1993Jan2.000003.16316@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>
>In article <1993Jan1.185039.13759@hfsi.uucp> ata@hfsi.UUCP (John Ata - FSO) writes:
>
>You seem to be missing something here.
>
>Every time I ask how you can tell what something is, since Christians don't
>seem to agree on it, you refer me to something else--and without fail, the
>something else has had exactly the same problem.  This is another one.  Just
>like you won't agree on "Christian", "core beliefs of Jesus", "what the
>gospels say", you won't agree on this one either: different groups of
>Christians will tell me that they "look at the actions in their context and
>totality" and come up with different answers.  This response is no more useful
>than any of the other ones!

1) I gave you a clear, concise technical definition of what a
Christian was.  If you choose to ignore it, what more can I do? 

2) You're right, I didn't go into all of Jesus's teachings and tell you which
ones are the core beliefs.  But I did tell you in a previous post what I had
in mind when I made that statement.  Again, you chose to ignore it.

3) How many Christian denominations will look at the fig tree incident and
come to the conclusion that Jesus meant for us to destroy things.  If you
know of any that espouse this belief, please post it here for us.  Not that
I'm brushing aside your claim that *you* interpreted the fig tree incident
in this manner.  I'm only challenging your assertion that it's a major
source of confusion among Christian denominations.

>
>>>>>>There seems to be a notion that the fights that different
>>>>>>Christian denominations have with one another were over the basic
>>>>>>values of Jesus.
>>>>>Of course, the fights were over other things _also_, but the disagreement over
>>>>>the basic values of Jesus _did_ have _something_ to do with it.
>>>>Such as?
>>>I can't parse this.  What are you asking for examples of?
>>Which basic values of Jesus have people fought over?
>
>Well, I have no idea what the basic values of Jesus are (since when I take my
>best guess you tell me I'm wrong).  So I suppose you must mean something like
>"which things have people fought over that they _thought_ were basic values
>of Jesus".  In which case, things like which church's doctrine is the correct
>one, which religions should rule, whether Jesus should be worshipped at all,
>that sort of thing.

1) Which Church doctrine was the correct one - My favorite is the split
between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrinal
question of whether the Holy Spirit proceded from the Father AND Son, or just
from the Father.  Of course, this wasn't the only reason for the split, but
it was the question of doctrine that was in hot contention.  I won't answer
the question, but will leave it up to you to decide if the basic teachings
of Jesus were in question here.

2) Which religion should rule - This has nothing to do with any of Jesus's
teachings and everything to do with power and control of men.

3) Whether Jesus should be worshipped - so you mean the question of whether
Jesus was divine or not.  I'm sure that there were people who held to the
negative, but do you know who they were and how much divisiveness this
teaching actually held?  I don't see many Christian denominations today
teaching that Jesus was not divine, but perhaps you can let me know?

>
>It's hard to find teachings that everyone will agree on--it's possible to find
>people who believe murder is right, or who believe the Earth is flat.  But I'm
>not just arguing because there are one or two people who disagree--as you
>correctly point out, you can't find someone _everyone_ agrees on.  I'm arguing
>because there are _lots_ of people who disagree.  Although I can't give
>examples of teachings which are in complete agreement among all human beings,
>I certainly _can_ give examples of teachings which human beings are a lot
>_closer_ to unanimity about, than Christianity.  Not everyone agrees that the
>world is round--but maybe 99.9 percent do.  If 99.9% agreed on the definition
>of Christianity, we would not be having this argument.

The earth's flatness or roundness is a matter of fact which one can prove
or disprove quite routinely (Flat-earthers not withstanding).  Teachings are
something else.  Even the simple teaching that murder is wrong has a lot
less than 99.9% following it since many people will allow murder under
different conditions which vary greatly from culture to culture as well as
from person to person.  So again, which teaching do you know that has
virtual unaniminity.

>
>Yes.  According to the definition that you just spelled out, a torturer who
>is motivated by a sincere feeling of sympathy for someone's immortal soul is
>being "compassionate".  That's why I wanted you to spell it out--I had a hunch
>it would have some problems.  (Note that to feel sympathy for a person's
>misfortune does not require the misfortune really be there.  Note also that
>your definition does not require the act of compassion to be effective.)

I think that you are making the assumption here that given:
    It is desirable that people's actions be tempered with compassion.
that it necessarily follows that
    All compassionate acts are right or desirable.

The conclusion, of course, does not follow from the premise.

Therefore, although someone may feel compassion for another's
soul, it does not follow that torturing them to change is right or
desirable even if it is looked on as a compassionate act.

>--
>Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, arromdee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)


-- 
John G. Ata - Technical Consultant | Internet:  ata@hfsi.com
HFS, Inc.		  VA20     |     UUCP:  uunet!hfsi!ata
7900 Westpark Drive	 MS:601	   |    Voice:	(703) 827-6810
McLean, VA  22102	           |      FAX:	(703) 827-3729