RE: Unconventional Religion
July 31, 2013 at 5:55 am
(This post was last modified: July 31, 2013 at 5:57 am by Consilius.)
(July 30, 2013 at 8:34 am)DeistPaladin Wrote: Where you seem to me to be tripping up in your attempt to understand Christianity's origins is you seem to be under the impression that the only alternative to Christianity having a divine origin is a bunch of people meeting in a back room in some secret conspiracy to carefully craft and devise this religion as a means to a planned end. Now it is true that some religions are born this way but this is not the only alternative.
It reminds me of the "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" trilemma so famous in apologetics. You start with your desired conclusion, insist that there's only one or two possible alternatives and then straw-man the alternatives by way of reducto ad absurdum. In this case, it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that you insist that Christianity either has a divine origin or it was a carefully crafted backroom conspiracy.
I thought you were trying to assert something like that in your essays.
Its true that many not-Jesus things have been written about Jesus (the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas). At many times in Christian history, the Church was just outright about it. If you're Gospel or your church didn't follow mainstream teaching, it was labelled heresy. Documents were evaluated by their theology rather than their historicity. I can admit to that.
Would you say that Christ was adapted to the Gospels or the Gospels were adapted to Christ?
(July 31, 2013 at 5:52 am)genkaus Wrote: It is irrational to adhere to fixed-value morality with no regard to its actual application.It does seem like moral relativism has a place in that statement.
But give me a real world-example where the fair thing to do would be to choose personal benefit over that of someone else.