Ambiguous Christian truths?

[McCulloch]

There is no ambiguity to what is and what isn't "Christian truth." Jesus is the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Jesus. No amount of relativism can alter that reality.

Is there any ambiguity about what is and is not Christian truth? If not why are there so many conflicting Christian creeds, dogmas and theologies?

[Wootah]

There is no ambiguity to what is and what isn't "Christian truth." Jesus is the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Jesus. No amount of relativism can alter that reality.

Is there any ambiguity about what is and is not Christian truth? If not why are there so many conflicting Christian creeds, dogmas and theologies?

What underlines all heresy is 'Jesus +'.

If they are saying to get to heaven you need Jesus plus something else then you are off track somewhere as a Christian.

[Divine Insight]

Is there any ambiguity about what is and is not Christian truth? If not why are there so many conflicting Christian creeds, dogmas and theologies?

Well, if Jesus is the way the truth and the life, then there is clearly a whole lot of ambiguity.

There is a lot of ambiguity in what Jesus supposedly taught and might have said.

In fact, we don't have anything that came directly from this person named Jesus. Everything we have that has been attributed to him has been rumored hearsay.

In fact, we have Jesus being attributed with having said that it's not even important to believe in him or his words. Yet we have the authors of the gospels conflicting with this and instead proclaiming that if a person doesn't believe in Jesus they are condemned. There's a conflict right there representing extreme ambiguity.

I always like to point to Luke 6:37 where Luke quotes Jesus as having said that if we judge not we will not be judged, if we condemn not we will not be condemned, and if we forgive we will be forgiven.

That seems pretty straight-forward to me, but clearly there are many other things attributed to Jesus that appear to conflict with this.

Also from Luke was have Jesus asking God the Father to forgive people of mocking him and crucifying him merely because they know not what they do.

That also seems pretty clear and straight-forward too yet other places these scriptures try to make out like Jesus will not tolerate anything less than total obedience and devotion.

So pointing to Jesus doesn't remove ambiguity by far.

Moreover, much of what Christians push onto Jesus came from Paul. But why should Paul speak for Jesus? Is Paul the truth, the life, and the way?

There is nothing unambiguous about the Christian mythology of Jesus. It's not only ambiguous but it's often quite self-contradictory as well.

[Divine Insight]

There is no ambiguity to what is and what isn't "Christian truth." Jesus is the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Jesus. No amount of relativism can alter that reality.

Is there any ambiguity about what is and is not Christian truth? If not why are there so many conflicting Christian creeds, dogmas and theologies?

What underlines all heresy is 'Jesus +'.

If they are saying to get to heaven you need Jesus plus something else then you are off track somewhere as a Christian.

How do you extract Jesus from the Christian Doctrine? How is that even possible?

When I try to do that the Christians themselves are the very first to scream foul.

[Inigo Montoya]

It could be I'm just simple, but "no amount of relativism can alter that reality" makes my head hurt.

If someone can decipher whatever the hell that means, and show it to be a sensible statement, I may see to contributing.

[Wootah]

[Replying to Divine Insight]

How do you know what anyone said or did in history? How does your argument preserve other histortical documents?

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 5 by Inigo Montoya]

Relativism or subjectivity is the inclination to take statements and make them mean something else. 99% is expressing how clearly stated that is and that it is basically impossible to interpret it differently to the intention.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to Divine Insight]

How do you know what anyone said or did in history? How does your argument preserve other histortical documents?

I have no need to preserve other historical documents.

Especially consider this:

If you give me a book on say, physics or mathematics written by ancient authors like say Euclid. I can read it without having any clue who the author was or what the origin of the document was. I can simply take the information given, test what it is saying, and decide whether or not it speaks truth.

This can't be done with most religious texts. Most religious texts not only make proclamations that are untestable, but they quite often make statements that are utterly absurd. And they almost always demand that the reader must believe all of this nonsense as a matter of pure faith, lest they will face certain dire consequences.

The Christian doctrine, including those referencing Jesus, make outrageous and absurd claims. They demand that they must be believed as a matter of pure faith. And I see no reason to believe them.

In fact, Christianity is basically asking me to believe that I was created by a complete idiot. It's also asking me to believe that I'm a horribly immoral person who isn't worthy of my creator's love, and so on.

Gee whiz, if I had history books that demanded these same kinds of absurdities I'd reject them out of hand too.

In fact, typically we have. We call them mythology.

We don't try to preserve mythologies as "truth".

Why do this with Hebrew mythology?

[Zzyzx]

.

How do you know what anyone said or did in history?

Realistically, the best we can do is to guess from available information. We cannot know for sure even such things as exactly what Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address. (Surprisingly little actual information is available as anyone interested can verify with internet research).

How does your argument preserve other histortical documents?

Since other historical documents are not being debated here, their acceptance or lack thereof is of no significance. It is worthy of note, however, that documents that tell stories about incredible / supernatural events are generally dismissed as fantasy and not regarded as historically accurate and truthful.

Should one religion's supernatural tales and claims be regarded as "historical" or literally true while others are dismissed as "false?" If so why and on what basis?

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 8 by Divine Insight]

It's classic post-modernism (as 99% was indicating). An alternative is to