Re: RELIGION Christianity and Dogma (EVOLUTION: was Re: Salt)

[Guest guest]

,

> Not to mention the reactions to gnosticism (and orality?* and other

> factors?) which I see as having set the church against the notions of

> wisdom and personal spiritual experience.

Well this is very different from what I was referring to. The

reaction of the mainstream Christian community against gnosticism

probably began in the Apostolic age within the first century, and was

most certainly in full force in the second century.

Nevertheless, even though the " Church Fathers " who solidifed the

anti-gnostic dogma (and I disagree with you on the relative

positive/negative value of this) were at that time scientifically

educated and rational people. St. Basil the Great was denounced as an

atheist by one critic because he believed that language was invented

by humans rather than given to humans by God, even though Genesis

clearly states this. Needless to say, he was not less than honored by

the church despite these " atheistic " beliefs. The fourth century

school of thought coming from the Catechetical School of andria

took an extremely anti-literalist view of the Bible, and St.

of Nyssa who was a major writer in this school held a great position

of prestige in the church. St. Augustine was an adherent to

Manicheism because he could not read the Old Testament without

concluding that the Old Testament God was evil until he had understood

it in a new way after hearing St. Ambrose convey the church's

understanding of it. Augustine warned against interpreting the 6-day

creation literally not because he had any science to disprove it but

because when he read Genesis he did not get the impression from the

way it was written that it was meant to be taken as a literal six-day

story.

Moreover, the " ghost in the machine " concept of the human mind was

also alien to the Church Fathers. They believed in an immaterial

soul, but believed that its capacity to see, smell, feel and so on was

a product of its integration into the physical body.

The idea that God is a man with hands and a big beard hanging out up

in the location of " Heaven " somewhere is completely alien to

first-millenium Christian thought. The orthodox view at that time was

that God is a spirit who is everywhere-present and whose omnipresence

and integration with the material world is directly responsible for

the sustenance of its existence.

And they also solidified a whole boatload of dogma, and some of them

were not so friendly to those who opposed that dogma. But the

anti-science, literalist and excessively anthropomorphic tendencies of

Christianity were integrated primarily in the West at a much later

date than the dogmatism started, which was essentially immediate or

very close to it.

> Reason coupled with genuine

> personal spiritual experience, interpretation of parable and the like,

> the actual living religion all gave way to a dead, static, imposed

> form that atrophied into the various dogmatic literalist groups we're

> confronted with today (way simplistic, I know, but this is a summary).

The largest thrust to the solidification of dogma during the fourth

century came from the people who had fled into the middle of the

desert to live a spiritual life alone. They solidified it and went

back into the desert. So, they apparently did not see a conflict

between the two.

> Thought is no longer allowed, there is no interpretation. Today this

> is enforced in part through strict literal reading of scripture,

> despite the fact that most are reading English translations at least

> twice removed from " originals, " which were themselves transcriptions

> or interpretations of oral traditions. God's word filtered through

> human minds and cultural forces.

The translation issue is significant. The most reliable way to

translate the Bible would be to use the Septuagint and the Dead Sea

Scrolls, which are largely in agreement with each other. The use of

the Masoretic texts -- which are clearly corrupted based on the

agreement between the Septuagint, Old Testament quotes in the New

Testament, and Dead Sea Scrolls in almost every case where these

differ from the Masoretic texts -- to further translate into Latin was

a major problem. When there was theological communication between the

Latin-speaking and Greek-speaking world, the traditional concepts were

maintained reasonably well. When Greek was lost in the West, they had

practically nothing but Augustine to rely on, they couldn't be kept in

check by the East, and they had no " thinking " language to balance

their " doing " language, no " philosophizing " language to balance their

" legalizing " language. And then there is the simple issue of

accuracy. Translations are never perfect.

But you are right, there is a lot of writing and oral tradition that

has been lost and it will probably forever remain a mystery.

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

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[Guest guest]

Good Evening.

If I am flamed for this...then so be it. As a Creation-believing,

headcovering-wearing, Plain Christian woman...there have been several things in

this " evolution " discussion that I have foudn just a tad offensive.

I joined this list to learn about WAP-style eating, fermenting and living for

better health. It has saddened me to see such a debate as has raged for the

past several days.

Would it be appropriate to take this off-list, should you desire to continue?

Thank you.

Mrs Bernstein (Avery)

Conservative Christian Reading & More? http://www.dabscardsandmore.com

Tupperware for Your Everyday http://my.tupperware.com/mrsbernstein

Be Pampered in Your Kitchen! Email me about earning FREE Pampered Chef!

---------------------------------

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[Guest guest]

Mrs. Bernstein,

You've missed past discussions. They've all been quite civilized in this

recent one, unlike prior times when a few were downright vile in their

outspokenness and hatred of Christians. I've noticed certain civilized

restraints in this dialogue. You may very well have fainted away had you

read earlier " discussions " ....

There is only One who offends....

Sharon, NH

On 9/11/06, Mrs Bernstein <mrsdanielbernstein@...> wrote:

>

> Good Evening.

>

> If I am flamed for this...then so be it. As a Creation-believing,

> headcovering-wearing, Plain Christian woman...there have been several things

> in this " evolution " discussion that I have foudn just a tad offensive.

>

> I joined this list to learn about WAP-style eating, fermenting and living

> for better health. It has saddened me to see such a debate as has raged for

> the past several days.

>

> Would it be appropriate to take this off-list, should you desire to

> continue?

>

> Thank you.

>

> Mrs Bernstein (Avery)

>

> Conservative Christian Reading & More? http://www.dabscardsandmore.com

> Tupperware for Your Everyday http://my.tupperware.com/mrsbernstein

> Be Pampered in Your Kitchen! Email me about earning FREE Pampered Chef!

>

> ---------------------------------

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

On 9/12/06, Sharon son <skericson@...> wrote:

> Mrs. Bernstein,

> You've missed past discussions. They've all been quite civilized in this

> recent one, unlike prior times when a few were downright vile in their

> outspokenness and hatred of Christians. I've noticed certain civilized

> restraints in this dialogue. You may very well have fainted away had you

> read earlier " discussions " ....

Almost everyone who has posted in this thread is either a Christian or

is somewhat sympathetic to Christianity, with the exception of one or

two people. If anything is to be restrained, it's the 1% of comments

that have been what a reasonable person would take offense to, and not

the 99% of the discussion that a reasonable person could not take

offense to.

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

Sharon-

In the future, please trim excess backquoted material from your

posts. I'm leaving your entire post intact so you can see what I'm

talking about.

And everyone else: please do the same. I'm going to start being

strict about this. It's simply a basic courtesy.

>Mrs. Bernstein,

>You've missed past discussions. They've all been quite civilized in this

>recent one, unlike prior times when a few were downright vile in their

>outspokenness and hatred of Christians. I've noticed certain civilized

>restraints in this dialogue. You may very well have fainted away had you

>read earlier " discussions " ....

>

>There is only One who offends....

>

>Sharon, NH

>

>On 9/11/06, Mrs Bernstein

><<mailto:mrsdanielbernstein%40>mrsdanielbernstein@...> wrote:

> >

> > Good Evening.

> >

> > If I am flamed for this...then so be it. As a Creation-believing,

> > headcovering-wearing, Plain Christian woman...there have been

> several things

> > in this " evolution " discussion that I have foudn just a tad offensive.

> >

> > I joined this list to learn about WAP-style eating, fermenting and living

> > for better health. It has saddened me to see such a debate as has raged for

> > the past several days.

> >

> > Would it be appropriate to take this off-list, should you desire to

> > continue?

> >

> > Thank you.

> >

> > Mrs Bernstein (Avery)

> >

> > Conservative Christian Reading & More?

> <http://www.dabscardsandmore.com>http://www.dabscardsandmore.com

> > Tupperware for Your Everyday

> <http://my.tupperware.com/mrsbernstein>http://my.tupperware.com/mrsbernstein

> > Be Pampered in Your Kitchen! Email me about earning FREE Pampered Chef!

> >

> > ---------------------------------

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

>

[Guest guest]

Mrs. -

>Would it be appropriate to take this off-list, should you desire to continue?

Sorry, but evolution is on-topic for this list.

-

[Guest guest]

So sorry, ...by the time I finished removing all the -garbage, I

thought I'd gotten down to the " meat " of what I was replying to......will

try better.

Sharon

On 9/12/06, Idol <Idol@...> wrote:

>

> Sharon-

>

> In the future, please trim excess backquoted material from your

> posts. I'm leaving your entire post intact so you can see what I'm

> talking about.

>

> And everyone else: please do the same. I'm going to start being

> strict about this. It's simply a basic courtesy.

>

>