Liberal Christians only believe some "fundamentalism?

[AlAyeti]

There are now political Christians wanting to "re-claim" Christianity from whatever the "Right" is, or has done to it. Claiming that their way of Christianity is more like what Jesus would want.

But many of these Liberal positions hold to funadamentalism on the poor, the needy and anti-war and violence, but oppose Biblical truth on many other issues.

Why do Liberal Christians deny the truths of the New Testament on marriage and children as defined by Jesus himself?

Liberals will teach about condom usage but decry the Biblical truth about abstaining from sex until marriage as something ignorant or intolerant?

Why are not Liberal Christians funding missionaries to go to Muslim and other countries to spread the Gospel exactly the way Jesus described and exactly the way it is presented in the Gospels?

How can Liberal Christians support a womans right to kill her unborn child and encourage a woman to go and do it, while at the same time, denying the same rights of choice on the matter be given equal recognition to the father of the child?

How and why can Liberal Christians call themselves Christians while only preaching and teaching some immutable Christian positions and not all?

[redstang281]

The Christian New Testament seems to teach that unclean spirits cause every disease and every sickness, blindness and muteness; that a demon causes convulsions; that faith cures disease; that an angel of the Lord stirring up water can magically cures diseases. ...

I'm sorry but that's incorrect to say that the Bible teaches that all sickness is caused by demons. In fact the scripture draws a distinction between healing the sick and casting out demons.
Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. You have received freely, freely give.

Do be careful. Quite often the Bible uses parallelisms where things are listed which are, in fact, the same things. Just because things are in a list does not necessarily mean that the writer is making a distinction.

To prove your point, could you please give me an example of parallelism being used in a list where it would not make sense for a distinction to be drawn between the items?

[McCulloch]

To prove your point, could you please give me an example of parallelism being used in a list where it would not make sense for a distinction to be drawn between the items?

A good example would be Proverbs 31.20, there is no difference between poor and needy:

"She stretches out her hand to the poor;"
"She reaches forth her arms to the needy"

Psalm 15:1
Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

Psalm 24:3:
"Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?/And who shall stand in his holy place?"

Job "I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul"

Luke 1:46-47:
And Mary said: "My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

[bernee51]

Jesus also claimed to be God, so if that's not true then he is a liar or a lunatic. Either of the later would offer no valuable guides to life.

Lord, liar or lunatic - another logical fallacy.

So as you don't have to ask - it is a logical fallacy because it excludes other possibilities.

Please share if there are other possibilities.

The gospels are a mythology. (There are parallels in other myths)

I didn't mean it to offend you. If you offered what you felt was your greatest blessing to me I would be thankful. I thought you would be thankful if I offered my greatest to you.

I am never offended.

I was not aware it was your greatest gift.

To show you 'care', why pray? why not just say 'I care'? It is much more honest.

So you think I lied about it?

Not at all. By 'honest', I meant honest communication. Communicating withint the experience of the 'other'. I am clearly atheist - to say you care is much more meaningful to me than to be told you prayed for me.

[bernee51]

I was trying to argue from a highest common denominator between your belief and mine. I obviously believe man is incapable of producing life from non living material while you on the other hand accept that they can't now but believe that one day they will. I didn't mean to imply necessity for a supernatural origin is on shaky ground.

Who said anything about man creating life from non-living materials? I made no such claim.

You are claimig that life could not arise without the input of 'god'. I am saying that life could arise spontaneously by a mechanism that is not yet understood.

Whether man gets to create life or not is not the issue.

What will happen to your god and your belief in it, if, sometime in the fiuture, a totally natural explanation is determined for the origins of the universe?

Personally I think even the idea of man making life is so irrational that I do not worry about it.

As above. I am not claiming man will one day create 'life'

My faith is determined by what the Lord has put in my heart not by arguments or evidence that happen to support it.

How do you know what is in your heart is the truth.

I know 'in my heart' that we are born and we will die - nothing more nothing less. Why is my knowledge any less valid than yours.

I'm not using this argument alone to prove the existence of the Biblical God just the existence of the super natural or at least an outer dimensional source.

An 'outer dimensional source' which you label 'god'.

The argument is still flawed.

If something exists it is part of the natural world. Just because we don't yet understand the nature of its arising does not mean that the alternative - a supernatural arising - is the only valid alternative.

[redstang281]

I'm sorry but that's incorrect to say that the Bible teaches that all sickness is caused by demons. In fact the scripture draws a distinction between healing the sick and casting out demons.

Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. You have received freely, freely give.

Do be careful. Quite often the Bible uses parallelisms where things are listed which are, in fact, the same things. Just because things are in a list does not necessarily mean that the writer is making a distinction.

To prove your point, could you please give me an example of parallelism being used in a list where it would not make sense for a distinction to be drawn between the items?

A good example would be Proverbs 31.20, there is no difference between poor and needy:

"She stretches out her hand to the poor;"
"She reaches forth her arms to the needy"

Psalm 15:1
Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

Psalm 24:3:
"Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?/And who shall stand in his holy place?"

Job "I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul"

Luke 1:46-47:
And Mary said: "My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

Yes sir, but these are two items not a list. I won't argue that the Bible uses parallelism as a means of further expressing a point. But I don't think that showing examples of where this is used dually proves that it is also used in a list. Not to mention would you be suggesting that every object in Math 10:8 is also synonymous to sickness? If one isn't synonymous then why should any? Sense all of them can not be the same as sickness then I contend that demons can not either.

Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. You have received freely, freely give.

[redstang281]

Jesus also claimed to be God, so if that's not true then he is a liar or a lunatic. Either of the later would offer no valuable guides to life.

Lord, liar or lunatic - another logical fallacy.

So as you don't have to ask - it is a logical fallacy because it excludes other possibilities.

Please share if there are other possibilities.

The gospels are a mythology. (There are parallels in other myths)

Right, and the only striking similarities being found in documents dating well after the birth of Christianity. The Gospel accounts date back to during the lifetime of individuals who could have seen Christ and had first hand knowledge of him. If the account of Christ in the Gospel was inaccurate it would not have been accepting to the ancient world.

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2001/333/

[redstang281]

I was trying to argue from a highest common denominator between your belief and mine. I obviously believe man is incapable of producing life from non living material while you on the other hand accept that they can't now but believe that one day they will. I didn't mean to imply necessity for a supernatural origin is on shaky ground.

Who said anything about man creating life from non-living materials? I made no such claim.

You are claiming that life could not arise without the input of 'god'. I am saying that life could arise spontaneously by a mechanism that is not yet understood.

So how is that not claiming that life comes from something previously not alive?

Whether man gets to create life or not is not the issue.

Man needs to create life in order to prove that God's hand isn't required.

My faith is determined by what the Lord has put in my heart not by arguments or evidence that happen to support it.

How do you know what is in your heart is the truth.

Because of what accompanies it. The Lord provides the evidence to satisfy your mind if your heart is willing.

I know 'in my heart' that we are born and we will die - nothing more nothing less. Why is my knowledge any less valid than yours.

Because you are not open minded to more my friend.

I'm not using this argument alone to prove the existence of the Biblical God just the existence of the super natural or at least an outer dimensional source.

An 'outer dimensional source' which you label 'god'.

Yes. So I believe it is more rational to believe in at least some sort of supernatural force rather then none. The topic of which supernatural force is responsible requires follow up arguments.

The argument is still flawed.

If something exists it is part of the natural world. Just because we don't yet understand the nature of its arising does not mean that the alternative - a supernatural arising - is the only valid alternative.

But from your current point of view you have no other alternative to offer. You just prefer the notion that a natural origin happen in order to avoid accountability.

[bernee51]

So how is that not claiming that life comes from something previously not alive?

It isn't - it is merely asserting that it is not necessary for man to be able to repeat it or even understand the mechanism for it to have happened.

Man needs to create life in order to prove that God's hand isn't required.

I don't beleive this to be the case. If there is no god, then there was no hand of god involved.

Because of what accompanies it. The Lord provides the evidence to satisfy your mind if your heart is willing.

I would say thet the 'divine' provides the answer if you are able to ask the right question.

I know 'in my heart' that we are born and we will die - nothing more nothing less. Why is my knowledge any less valid than yours.

Because you are not open minded to more my friend.

On the contray - my mind is open - to the investigation and consideration of all possibilities. A mind limited by christian beliefs is a mind closed to any other possibilities.

Yes. So I believe it is more rational to believe in at least some sort of supernatural force rather then none. The topic of which supernatural force is responsible requires follow up arguments.

I see no evidence for the supernatural. If something exists in the natural world it is as a result of natural processes - by definition.

But from your current point of view you have no other alternative to offer.

I don't see it as a problem that I am unable to offer an alternative - yet.

You just prefer the notion that a natural origin happen in order to avoid accountability.

You really think so - how judgemental of you.

I'll have to add that one to the "How to irritate an atheist" list.

Can you not think of any other thing other than your god that might encourage 'accountablility'?

[androgyneco]

Getting back to the original thread question, I can address fundamentalism vs. "liberal christian" viewpoints easily. The word "fundamentalism" is merely a semantic shorthand, it does not necessarily mean exactly the same thing to all people who use it. In fact the same can be said about the word "liberal" and the word "Christian"; Bear that in mind. In addition, all semantics aside, it's true that 250 years ago virtually all Christians in Europe and the Amer. colonies were roughly what we'd today call fundamentalists-- in the sense that they tended to interpret their translation of the bible quite literally; What happened of course, was the Rational Enlightenment which refers to a group of British and French philosophers' body of work. The upshot of the Enlightenment which ran from the mid 1700's until the early decades of the 19th century was that the scientific method was now applied to thought. In addition to reason-- which is a purely logical process--the elevation of scientific thought and METHOD meant that 1) Empiricism--that is direct observation-- was now given the most respect, and 2) the application of the method (hypothesis, procedures carried out under control conditions, careful interpretation of resulting data, and finally REPEATABLE results) came to be the gold standard for evaluating information and truth. This is applied to everything including the search for the historical Jesus, and yes-- interpretation of Christian writings. THis gradually, over 2+ centuries leads to the "liberal" interpretations of Christianity that you speak of. It happened gradually-- and a lot of people who don't necessarily completely agree on everything among themselves are simply trying to reconcile belief with the knowledge that science affords us. It's their attempt in good faith to preserve belief while recognizing modern knowledge advances. This is basically the "liberal" Christianity which you criticize. YOu seem to act as if these are an evil group of people who somehow decide to be "liberal" politically first, and then chip away somehow at Christianity, rather than the other way around. Their belief came first in most cases....!