Turtle,
Why are your beliefs about god not appropriate here? Your sound in your posts like an atheist or agnostic. In your fight against nominal Christianity have you thrown out the baby with the bathwater? It is hard to pin you down as to your personal beliefs. Phyllo tried, without results.
duplicate
what do you mean by atheist…
why do you insist on finding a label for me…lets talk about ideas…
I sense that you are not being kind…
Would you accept the label “progressive Christian”? Or does no label fit you? We seem to need labels in order to discuss anything. In any event, I apologize if I seemed unkind. I’m just curious.
Every word is a label!
progressive Christianity is about having a more authentic Christianity…like treating people the way you like to be treated…and jesus was one of the teachers…
What other teachers? Rabbi Hillel? Confucius?
Jesus spoke about God and heaven and hell. How can progressive Christianity be considered a more authentic Christianity if it strives to remove those ideas?
it depends on which story you choose…some people see authentic Christianity as the jesus story before the ???leaders took over like Constantine…
So what you are saying is that Jesus did not believe in God, heaven and hell as it is described in the NT … that stuff was added by Constantine.
So what did the authentic Jesus believe, according to the progressives? And how do they know that’s what the authentic Jesus believed?
good questions…I don’t know what the authentic jesus believed…the progressives don’t know…but at the 325ad council of nicea it was decided by all the bishops that jesus is god…I think two guys didn’t agree but they were shunned…
the bible can be read in different ways…john Shelby spong is one of the leaders of the progressive movement…he is very provocative and he disturbs many Christians…
I personally focus on following the way of jesus …the way of kindness…
Basically, the progressives could be fabricating this because it makes them feel good and it may have absolutely nothing to do with what Jesus actually said.
“Jesus is god” is only a small part of what bothers progressives about Christianity.
Jesus brought a sword…
where did jesus bring a sword…
the jesus is god thing is a crucial question …it lends authority to jesus
If Jesus knows what God expects of people, then he is speaking for God while not being God. His authority comes from God.
phyllo----do you have anything to say about the council of nicea 325
It happened 1690 years ago.
We have access to all the texts that were written about Jesus.
We have expert opinion on which texts are probably original and which have been added/altered.
You can make up your own mind.
Some things seem fairly clear:
Jesus believed in a personal God.
Jesus believed in right and wrong conduct.
Jesus believed in an afterlife and a judgement by God.
Disputed/unclear/uncertain :
The nature of Jesus - God, divine, or man.
The nature of the judgement - what happens in the afterlife, what is the punishment.
The resurrection - what happened, if anything.
phyllo says—
Disputed/unclear/uncertain :
The nature of Jesus - God, divine, or man.
The nature of the judgement - what happens in the afterlife, what is the punishment.
The resurrection - what happened, if anything.
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turtle says-----
I just don’t understand your position…the whole idea of nicea325 was to establish the divinity of Christ…the ideas of arius were rejected…how can you say that is uncertain…
I don’t care what they established. There is not enough available information to determine the divinity of Jesus. One faction won, that’s all. It’s not important now.
You have a brain in your head. You can decide for yourself whether Jesus was divine or not.
Jesus could be God.
Jesus could be a man guided by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus could be a human prophet of God.
Jesus could be a demented lunatic.
It’s up to you. It can be part of your life and your spiritual journey or you can take another path. The books provide information. Nicaea provides arguments. You make the decision.
now I understand where you are coming from…I totally agree with what you are saying…
one of the things I was saying------if you believe jesus is god…your path is very different from the path of the human jesus…
would you agree with that…
Jesus was either a son of God or a lunatic. Which is it for you?