From: ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO)
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas betray?
Reply-To: ata@hfsi.UUCP (John Ata - FSO)
Organization: HFSI, McLean VA.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 03:36:10 GMT

In article <1993Jan3.202758.13949@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>In article <1993Jan3.035433.18021@hfsi.uucp> ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO) writes:
>>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?

The definition I gave you did not require you to make a decision
on anything.  Perhaps you have forgetten it, or did not read it.
I will repost it again: Technically, all people who have been
baptized and who have not renounced their faith are Christian,
i.e. members of the Church of Christ.  Again, let me reiterate
that since all Christians do not necessarily act in a Christ-like
manner, then the relevancy of whether a person who commits evil
happens to be Christian is nil.  You will find a lot of evil in
all kinds of people whether they be Christian, Moslem, Jewish,
Buddhist etc.  The common denominater here is "people" and not the
religion.

>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.

Talk about circular reasoning, you state the churches fought over
the basic teachings of Jesus, and then to prove that they were
doing so, you state that only basic teachings of Jesus would cause
someone to fight.  You do the same above for schisms.  Forgive me
if I don't buy this reasoning.

>
>>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.

You mean that Christian sects fought each other over whether or
not to kill or torture non-Christians?

>
>>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.

The definition of a Christian can be found in any English
dictionary.  Unfortunately, the statement that murder is wrong
cannot.  It takes a lot more thinking to define whether murder is
always wrong and if not under what conditions is it allowed?  So I
would vernture that you're wrong on that.

>
>>>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".

A glimmer :) The Inquisitors *were* in all liklihood Christian.
But what does this prove? 

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


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