RE: No reason justifies disbelief.
March 18, 2019 at 8:25 pm
(This post was last modified: March 18, 2019 at 8:27 pm by Belacqua.)
(March 18, 2019 at 7:32 pm)Peebo-Thuhlu Wrote: At work.
Uhm.... given the dates... isn't it that the Christian's took inspiration from the classical Greek philosophers?
Christian theology is largely an adaptation of Greek philosophy. Nietzsche called Christianity "Platonism for the masses."
Remember that in the New Testament age Greek ideas had already permeated Palestine, through the general Hellenist influence. So there is a Greek foundation, coming from people like Diogenes the Cynic, for the prophets of Christ's time. Of course this is all mixed with and expressed through Jewish ideas.
The first sentence of the gospel of John is straight from Greek philosophy. The "word" being referred to there is the Logos, which has a long pedigree in Greek philosophy as the intermediator between the creator (like God the Father) and creation. In this sense it means something like "principles": the principles or laws of nature through which the One (to use the Neoplatonic term) emanates the many.
After the New Testament was assembled the main interpreters (Anselm, Augustine, etc.) generally used Greek ideas. John Chrysostom and other important people were essentially Greek philosophers, speaking and reading Greek and completely at home in that system.
I've been told on sites like this one that when people say "Christians" they want to refer to some subset of mainstream American Christians -- probably ones that live nearby. But that excludes Chrysostom, Dante, and many others who are not really affected by the kind of easy criticism that fredd bear allows himself.
(March 18, 2019 at 7:55 pm)fredd bear Wrote: If they did I'can't think of any examples.
This demonstrates an almost complete ignorance of Christian theology.