01-27-2010, 01:45 AM
Quote:Why do you keep bringing this back to the Bible? Jesus Christ! Christians are about Christ! So, it was him, not Moses, or Noah, or Abraham, or David, or Joshua, or Paul, or Peter, or John the Baptist, or John the Apostle, or John the one who wrote Revelations. If we were talking about Buddhism, we'd look at the life and morality of Buddha, right?Call me crazy, but if I held a Bible up to a Christian, and asked "is this what you believe in?" the answer I'm expecting is "yes." Are you claiming this is not so? Last I checked, at least for mainstream Christian theology, the whole Bible is divinely inspired work. It is scripture.
Where do the ten commandments come from? Where do Adam 'n Eve come from? Noah's flood? The seven seals? Mark of the beast? Jonah and the whale? Trials of Job? Walls of Jericho? This is an awful lot of Christian belief to toss overboard. The four gospels may have pride of place, but Christians and Christianity has never restricted itself to Christ and Christ alone. The Old Testament, the Acts, the Epistles, Revelations... they're really not kidding when they call it "The Bible." It's *the* book, all of it. If you're not talking about all of it, you're talking about something other than Christianity - or at least not the mainstream sects.
Buddhism is actually not a bad example. Do they focus exclusively on the life and work of the one singular Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama? I would suggest that it's a lot more complicated than that, even before you get into reincarnation.
Quote:Again, you've set up an impossible acid test for me to try to convince you what happened in the mind of a mad man over 14 centuries ago.You're the one making positive claims about Mohammed's motives. You're dead right when you say it's impossible for either of us to read the mind of a long-dead man. But I'm not claiming to - you are. You say his religion is a contrivance. I make no claims about his sincerity. He could have been crazy, manipulative, good-intentioned-but-deceitful, metaphorically inclined, paranormally inspired... I don't think we can tell (okay, the last one's not so likely.) But what I do notice is how thoroughly you reject it, while simultaneously being willing to take (for instance) Joseph Smith perfectly seriously as a believer in his own faith. Like I said, it doesn't seem balanced.
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It would be equally unfair and difficult for me to expect you to convince me that Mohammad was sincere in his delusions and beliefs.
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I say he was insincere, you think he was sincere. Ok?
-Jester