Comments on: You don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:46:23 +0000

Mike! You’re making it difficult for me to keep the intensive discussion for a time when I don’t have an anti-catholic bigot participating.

By: Mike Purvis

Mike Purvis — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:24:23 +0000

I doubt that those denominations whould call themselves “ultra-liberal” and for denominations such as the Catholic Church, your denomination is the liberal one.

That’s true, but you can tell they’re liberal because they point to almost everyone else and exclaim how intolerably stodgy we are. (“What, your church doesn’t support the gay pride parade? Do you enjoy being a group that promotes hatred in the community?”)

Regarding the trinity, as you say, it’s not really critical to salvation by grace. But as soon as you break the story down a bit, it makes sense to identify Father, Son, and Spirit as separate aspects of God.

As for purgatory, I’m not familiar with the scriptural justifications typically presented, but the whole thing comes across as kind of a rationalization. Rather than “saved” and “unsaved,” there’s this mysterious third category of “somewhat saved” or “saved but owing.”

Like, it makes it easier to justify a pattern of confessing every once in a while, and if you snuff it expectedly, you’ll only have a few weeks worth of a accumulated wrongdoing to pay off.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:13:59 +0000

Deal…I tend to forget details about poorly written fiction. We can all have a good laugh…it will be therapeutic.

By: Christine

Christine — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 13:26:37 +0000

You’re more than welcome to laugh at my bible, provided I get to laugh at your complete lack of understanding of the concept of purgatory.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:00:00 +0000

The problem is that there are more than just Mormans who follow Non-trinitarian beliefs (you can check the wikipedia article for several more). This adds up to millions of individuals (including Unitarians and Jehova’s Witnesses) that are self professing Christians. I always find it quite strange how within Abrahamic Religions there is so much fighting when the real things that matter, the respect of others (which I believe to be the highest good), are ignored. I doubt that those denominations whould call themselves “ultra-liberal” and for denominations such as the Catholic Church, your denomination is the liberal one. (What? You don’t believe in 2 Maccabeus? Well…you’ll know the truth when you suffer in purgatory…)

So yeah, I do think it’s bigotry and is “a bad thing”. I think that there is still room to be saved by grace without the Trinity. But what do I know…a lowly heathen. Funny though…the Nicene Creed to me never explicitly expressed the Trinity…sort of one interpretation of it. (Oh Christine…we all can have a laugh at your Bible later…)

By: Mike Purvis

Mike Purvis — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:42:50 +0000

Yeah, I try to stay away from fights about the apocryphal books, and how literally things should be interpreted. It’s important to decide what you believe is and isn’t up for interpretation, but like earth-origin stuff, it’s kind of a secondary belief the fundamental principle of being saved by grace.

I suppose some ultra-liberal “many paths to salvation” denominations get excluded by my definition, but that may or may not be a bad thing. Is there anyone else?

By: Christine

Christine — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:25:40 +0000

Mike, your defination of who is Christian isn’t quite as inclusive as you would say. And I think we’re going to have to have a discussion on that topic. Especially I’m curious as to where you stand on my bible.

By: Jerry Wong

Jerry Wong — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 04:59:07 +0000

Jeff, that Gravity thread makes my head hurt Thank you. It’s really disturbing that someone with enough intelligence to type into a keyboard can fail at such a fundamental level in understanding science.

By: Mike Purvis

Mike Purvis — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 21:22:59 +0000

Well, I hate to join the chorus of bigotry, but I think it’s fair that as part of identifying oneself as part of a group, you can identify what factors make you a part of it.

Myself, I say my own Christianity is from a) a belief that the Bible is the only word of God, b) that I’m a sinner and only Christ’s resurrection can remedy that. Additionally, I believe that the Nicene creed represents an accurate summary of my faith, as interpreted from scripture.

And I’d consider any other person a Christian who believes more or less those same things. That broad definition encompasses pretty much all the Catholic, Protestant and Eastern traditions. It does, however, exclude the Mormons, who do not accept the creeds, and consider the Book of Mormon (among other things) to be on a level with the Bible.

I won’t deny that there are a lot of pretty wacky religious discussion forums on the web, but I think you’d find non-Mormon Christians pretty much unanimous in considering the Mormons a cult.