XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: theswain@operamail.com   
      
   darylgene@aol.com wrote:   
   > On Apr 25, 6:27�am, Larry Swain  wrote:   
   >   
   >>darylg...@aol.com wrote:   
   >>   
   >>>On Apr 24, 4:52?am, "?jevind L?ng"  wrote:   
   >>   
   >>>> skrev i meddelandetnews:1177375870.07468   
   .261800@b58g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...   
   >>   
   >>>>?[snip]   
   >>   
   >>>>>If one is to believe Paul a person does not get to pick and choose   
   >>   
   >>>>what they are to believe. Why would you call someone a Christian who   
   >>>>rejected either side of Christ? There are existential differences   
   >>>>between a God that became a man and one that was solely divine, so   
   >>>>again I would ask, how are they the same God?   
   >>   
   >>>>However, many early Christians ("the Ebionites") rejected Paul as "the new   
   >>>>twlfth Apostle". One can reject what Paul says and still be a Christian.   
   >>   
   >>>>?jevind   
   >>   
   >>>Why not what Matthew, Mark, John, Luke, James et al. say then. You   
   >>>could go the way of the Jesus Seminar and conclude He said little   
   >>>other than take care of the poor and do unto others.   
   >>   
   >>>In his book, "Christ, A Crisis in the Life of God," Jack Miles quotes   
   >>>Robert W Funk (a founder of the Jesus Seminar,) writing in his "Honest   
   >>>to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium," �as saying "I confess I am more   
   >>>intrested in what Jesus of Nazareth thinks about God's domain than in   
   >>>what Peter the fisherman and Paul the tentmaker thought about Jesus,"   
   >>>to which Miles continues "one perfectly legitimate reply is: "I   
   >>>confess I am not."   
   >>   
   >>>Perhaps one could claim to be a Christian and reject Paul but I   
   >>>suspect I would not recognize the doctrines of such a Christianity.   
   >>>Does a Voodoo priest qualify as a Christian because they also venerate   
   >>>Jesus? Do they also worship the same God?   
   >>   
   >>The problem continues to be that you define Christian as being an   
   >>orthodox Christian in the Western mode, as if these were precisely the   
   >>same thing. �They aren't   
   >   
   >   
   > You reach a point where it is absolutely meaningless then to call   
   > someone a Christian. Are Hindus Christians because they believe Christ   
   > an incarnation of Vishnu?   
      
   Please, don't be ridiculous if you can help it.  As others have pointed   
   out to you, Greek Orthodox or Coptic Christians for example do not   
   accept the Apostle's Creed as definitive to their Christian faith.  By   
   your definition these groups of Christians aren't Christians.  We do not   
   even have to get into the question of defining "heresies" as also   
   Christian (whether they are orthodox or not is a different question) to   
   prove your consistently touted position to be in error.   
      
   Second, your examples of the Voodoo priest and Hindus are inaccurate.   
   Neither of those claims to worship Jesus as the "son of YHWH who   
   appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses"; as for Jews, Muslims, and   
   Chrisitians, they do in fact say that they are worshipping the YHWH who   
   appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses among others and who   
   created all that there is, i. e. the same divine being.   
      
      
   As   
   > Dorothy Sayers mentions, you simply, then, have chaos.   
      
   Please don't miscite Sayers.   
      
   > BTW if that is how I DEFINE being a Christian then perforce they are   
   > the same. If you define it differently, perhaps for you they are   
   > not :-)   
      
   Is this what you call logic?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)