Search not the Book of Mormon for truly great allegory.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

This is as ignorant as if someone were to say that Anglican culture hijacked America. In fact, the analogy between early Amricans educated by and drawing on an Anglo-Saxon tradition spanning thousands of years (back to the Greeks, actually) in founding the American Republic, including writing its seminal documents in their native English, and Jews educated by Greeks and drawing on an ancient Greek tradition spanning thousand of years in founding Christianity, including writing the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, etc. in their native Greek toungue, is quite precise. Christianity absent the Greek is as unthinkable as America absent the English.

In the West, Greece was not just the mother country, it was the very embodiment of culture and education clear to the fall of Rome. Most of the great historians in antiquity through the Roman period wrote in Greek, were Greeks or Greek educated. Greek culture and eductation made Christianty possible and literally created it. So you have the Gospels written in Greek, with Christ ostensibly quoting from a Greek Bible, and a Hellenized Jew (Paul) paraphrasing Plato and Aristotle in generating the concepts of body and soul, spirit, the atonement, etc.

You're doing a very good job beating up a straw man on this.

ChinoCoug, Robinson, FARMS, and I all believe there is a knowable fact about God's state whether it be spirit or flesh. If that truth was revealed to Paul and taught to early Christians in 50 AD but then modified between 50 and 150 AD by good people who were influenced by Greek philosophy (nothing personal it's just different than what was revealed by God to man), then that is a bad thing for ChinoCoug, Robinson, FARMS, and me. It may be a great thing for you, and that's fine for you to believe that way. But you needn't bash on the intellectual and professional level of those that say it's a bad thing.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by jay santos

You're doing a very good job beating up a straw man on this.

ChinoCoug, Robinson, FARMS, and I all believe there is a knowable fact about God's state whether it be spirit or flesh. If that truth was revealed to Paul and taught to early Christians in 50 AD but then modified between 50 and 150 AD by good people who were influenced by Greek philosophy (nothing personal it's just different than what was revealed by God to man), then that is a bad thing for ChinoCoug, Robinson, FARMS, and me. It may be a great thing for you, and that's fine for you to believe that way. But you needn't bash on the intellectual and professional level of those that say it's a bad thing.

I'm not even certain what the argument is.

Is Seattle taking issue with the choice of words, "bad", using judgmental language for the incursions of Greek philosophy into Christian religious thought.

For one, I disagree Jay that what Greek thought did was supplant the "revealed word" but rather Greek thinking individuals tried to translate the literal discussions into a framework which corresponded to their understanding. Perhaps they did so inaccurately, and for Robison or any other to make a value judgment as to the impact of that translation may be what gives Seattle heartburn.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Archaea

I'm not even certain what the argument is.

Is Seattle taking issue with the choice of words, "bad", using judgmental language for the incursions of Greek philosophy into Christian religious thought.

For one, I disagree Jay that what Greek thought did was supplant the "revealed word" but rather Greek thinking individuals tried to translate the literal discussions into a framework which corresponded to their understanding. Perhaps they did so inaccurately, and for Robison or any other to make a value judgment as to the impact of that translation may be what gives Seattle heartburn.

Let's just make a real simple example.

Paul and the apostles were taught that God has a body of flesh.

They teach that to the early Christian church.

During the time period 50 AD - 150 AD, the doctrine is changed to one believing God has no body of flesh but has a body of spirit.

So the early Christian church went from teaching a correct doctrine to teaching an incorrect doctrine, based on an influence of Greek culture.

Ignoring all the virtues of the classic civilizations and the good it has had on the world in learning and education and progress and ignoring the enormous influence this had on the Jewish world at the time of Christ, you can still make a very simple argument that FURTHER Hellenization of the early Christian church had an impact of the modification of certain doctrines. Why would someone fight against this so aggressively?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by jay santos

You're doing a very good job beating up a straw man on this.

ChinoCoug, Robinson, FARMS, and I all believe there is a knowable fact about God's state whether it be spirit or flesh. If that truth was revealed to Paul and taught to early Christians in 50 AD but then modified between 50 and 150 AD by good people who were influenced by Greek philosophy (nothing personal it's just different than what was revealed by God to man), then that is a bad thing for ChinoCoug, Robinson, FARMS, and me. It may be a great thing for you, and that's fine for you to believe that way. But you needn't bash on the intellectual and professional level of those that say it's a bad thing.

FARMS is trying to develop an empirical, historical explanation for the "Great Apostasy." The problem is it's a distortion of history, and limiting. There may at one time have existed some small inconsequential sect of Hebrew speaking Jews that were not imbued with Greek culture calling themselves Christians. Harold Bloom purports have identified such a thing. But the Jesus of the Gospels, the Christianity of the New testament, was not corrupted by some later encounter with Greek. They ARE Greek, at a cellular level, right down to their DNA. Harold Bloom recognizes this, saying the NT is foreign to him, as a Jew.

Again, it's like saying America was corrupted by some later encounter with Great Britain. Maybe the Pilgrims would say that, but the Pilgrims would not and could not have written the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Fedaralist papers, etc. The irony is that if one were to say that about America, he wouldn't be talking about the same America even the declarant thought he was referencing. He'dr really just be talking about the American wilderness, not America at all.

Especially now that the LDS Church has conceded Lamanites are not American Indians, the Great Apostasy may be the LDS doctrine I find most objectionable. Next to murder, religion's greatest crime is distorting and obscuring the eveidence about human and natural history.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

FARMS is trying to develop an empirical, historical explanation for the "Great Apostasy." The problem is it's a distortion of history, and limiting. There may at one time have existed some small inconsequential sect of Hebrew speaking Jews that were not imbued with Greek culture calling themselves Christians. Harold Bloom purports have identified such a thing. But the Jesus of the Gospels, the Christianity of the New testament, was not corrupted by some later encounter with Greek. They ARE Greek, at a cellular level, right down to their DNA. Harold Bloom recognizes this, saying the NT is foreign to him, as a Jew.

Again, it's like saying America was corrupted by some later encounter with Great Britain. Maybe the Pilgrims would say that, but the Pilgrims would not and could not have written the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Fedaralist papers, etc. The irony is that if one were to say that about America, he wouldn't be talking about the same America even the declarant thought he was referencing. He'dr really just be talking about the American wilderness, not America at all.

Especially now that the LDS Church has conceded Lamanites are not American Indians, the Great Apostasy may be the LDS doctrine I find most objectionable. Next to murder, religion's greatest crime is distorting and obscuring the eveidence about human and natural history.

I don't know who you think you're trying to fool with this. You don't believe in the LDS church. We get it. But you're the one making yourself look like a joke for this attack on Robinson's theory of Church of the Devil. By your logic, the church still couldn't make a case on the apostacy if the early Christian church threw out Jesus completely and conformed to Greek mythology.

You think you're being logical because you don't accept any of the assumptions I put forth in earlier post. You believe Jesus and Paul pulled Christianity out of a hat by Hellenizing Judaism in the first place. We can't even have a dialogue if you don't accept that the people talking with you believe Jesus is the Christ.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by jay santos

I don't know who you think you're trying to fool with this. You don't believe in the LDS church. We get it. But you're the one making yourself look like a joke for this attack on Robinson's theory of Church of the Devil. By your logic, the church still couldn't make a case on the apostacy if the early Christian church threw out Jesus completely and conformed to Greek mythology.

You think you're being logical because you don't accept any of the assumptions I put forth in earlier post. You believe Jesus and Paul pulled Christianity out of a hat by Hellenizing Judaism in the first place. We can't even have a dialogue if you don't accept that the people talking with you believe Jesus is the Christ.

If it weren't for the Greeks, you wouldn't even know who Jesus was. It's possible there wasn't even any such thing as Jesus but for the Greeks. But you probably wouldn't even exist but for them anyway.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

If it weren't for the Greeks, you wouldn't even know who Jesus was. It's possible there wasn't even any such thing as Jesus but for the Greeks. But you probably wouldn't even exist but for them anyway.

Thanks for cutting through the bullshit of this "Robinson's unprofessional and ChinoCoug's intellectually dishonest" and telling us what you're really saying.

What you're saying is fine, if you're talking to another atheist about the theory of the evolution of Christianity. It doesn't work in a theological discussion with a group who believes Jesus is the Christ.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by jay santos

Let's just make a real simple example.

Paul and the apostles were taught that God has a body of flesh.

They teach that to the early Christian church.

During the time period 50 AD - 150 AD, the doctrine is changed to one believing God has no body of flesh but has a body of spirit.

So the early Christian church went from teaching a correct doctrine to teaching an incorrect doctrine, based on an influence of Greek culture.

Ignoring all the virtues of the classic civilizations and the good it has had on the world in learning and education and progress and ignoring the enormous influence this had on the Jewish world at the time of Christ, you can still make a very simple argument that FURTHER Hellenization of the early Christian church had an impact of the modification of certain doctrines. Why would someone fight against this so aggressively?

You're making something simple which is not so simple.

Let's address the concept of a tangible God and the homoousias and homoiousias discussions. Those arose not out of Greek philosophy but out an attempt to reconcile the One God concept and how to deal with Christ. It was not a Greek problem but a problem of the reconcilers, which existed in the Church from early on, probably starting with the Jews. To pin theological errors upon Greek culture is misleading IMHO.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by jay santos

Thanks for cutting through the bullshit of this "Robinson's unprofessional and ChinoCoug's intellectually dishonest" and telling us what you're really saying.

What you're saying is fine, if you're talking to another atheist about the theory of the evolution of Christianity. It doesn't work in a theological discussion with a group who believes Jesus is the Christ.

True. What's the point of discussing the phyical characteristics of Mars with someone who insists as a premise that Martians live there?

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

You're making something simple which is not so simple.

Let's address the concept of a tangible God and the homoousias and homoiousias discussions. Those arose not out of Greek philosophy but out an attempt to reconcile the One God concept and how to deal with Christ. It was not a Greek problem but a problem of the reconcilers, which existed in the Church from early on, probably starting with the Jews. To pin theological errors upon Greek culture is misleading IMHO.

that matter is bad is a neoplatonic import.