From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas betray?
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 20:27:58 GMT

In article <1993Jan3.035433.18021@hfsi.uucp> ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO) writes:
>>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? 

You can give me a useful one?

The definition you gave me is _totally_useless_.  It requires that I make a
decision on something that you yourself cannot agree on.  If Christians cannot
themselves get consistent answers when they "look at the actions in their
context and totality", how do you expect me, not even a Christian, to do it?

>>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.

I have no idea what the basic teachings of Jesus are, so I cannot say if they
were _really_ disputing basic teachings.  But they certainly _thought_ they
were.  Any disagreement that produces a complete schism between churches
looks pretty basic to me.

>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.

Why of course.  It is not a basic teaching of Jesus because it has nothing to
do with any of Jesus's teachings.  Circular.

The churches did _think_ that it was a basic teaching of Jesus, when they
fought over it.

>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?

No, I mean the issue of how non-worshippers should be dealt with.  Christians
don't disagree on whether or not Jesus was divine, mostly, but they do, or at
least did, disagree on how to deal with people who refuse to worship him.

>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.

Despite your bluff here, there are a lot more people who agree about murder
than who agree about Christianity.  Go around and ask 100 people if they
believe murder is wrong.  Now ask 100 people what a Christian is.  I'll bet
you'll get a lot more agreement on the first one.

>>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".
>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 purpose of this definition was to define "compassionate" for the purpose
of telling if someone is a real Christian by checking if they are
compassionate.  If not all compassionate acts are right or desirable, then your
check seems to allow Inquisitors, for example, as "real Christians".
--
"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Leftover Turkey!
On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Turkey Casserole
    that she made from Leftover Turkey.
[days 3-4 deleted] ...  Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
   -- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)

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