Claims and Stories

Argue for and against Christianity

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Zzyzx
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Claims and Stories

Post #1

Post by Zzyzx »

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Religions, perhaps all of the thousands of religions, make claims of knowledge about supernatural entities and events. Many (or most or all) also tell stories about their favorite ‘gods’.

When clerics / preachers / prophets / promoters repeat the claims and stories to the public, some will believe (take their word for it) – particularly if told to children or to people who are downtrodden for some reason or situation.

The claims and stories are repeated in frequent, often weekly, reinforcement meetings as well as ‘study groups’ (organized to study the stories), retreats, summer camps, revivals, etc. Being told to a willing, receptive audience the reception is expected to be positive. People seem to enjoy telling each other stories and discussing commonly held beliefs.

When dissension arises concerning the claims and stories, groups simply split into two or more – telling different versions of the same things. Tens of thousands of Christian denominations are the result of such splitting. Over time the different versions result in VERY diverse teachings that still claim the umbrella of Christianity.

Religionists appear to believe the claims and stories (at least to some extent). They often attempt to convince others to join in the beliefs – either to convert from other factions / religions or to convert from non-belief.

Proselytizing (or ‘spreading the word’) may encounter strong opposition from people who base decisions on verifiable evidence. Response from religionists is often to ‘double down’ and tell more stories and make more claims (and repeat) as though that would become convincing.

When ‘Take my word for it (or his or this book)’, or threats and promises (for ‘after you die’), or emotional testimonials – religionists have nothing more to offer (and typically move on to softer targets / more receptive audience).

Question for debate: Why should anyone believe the claims and tales of any religion?
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Non-Theist

ANY of the thousands of "gods" proposed, imagined, worshiped, loved, feared, and/or fought over by humans MAY exist -- awaiting verifiable evidence

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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #11

Post by Zzyzx »

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benchwarmer wrote:
1213 wrote:
Zzyzx wrote: ...Tens of thousands of Christian denominations are the result of such splitting....
Do you know where could I find a list of all those denominations?
Is your Google broken?

Mine found the following in less that 5 seconds:
I do not expect BELIEVERS to ever research a topic that might cast unfavorably upon their chosen religion / denomination / cult – and thereby threaten cherished beliefs.

Even when provided with research done by others (including Christian theologians and scholars) most hold fast to what they were taught as children.

Occasionally factual ideas are accepted by religionists – given enough time. For instance, it took only a century or so for most to accept that the Earth is not center of the solar system and universe. Some are now coming around to understanding that the Earth was not flooded ‘to the tops of mountains’, and that humans did not likely all descend from A&E.
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ANY of the thousands of "gods" proposed, imagined, worshiped, loved, feared, and/or fought over by humans MAY exist -- awaiting verifiable evidence

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Post #12

Post by Zzyzx »

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Perhaps it is disconcerting for ‘Christians’ to discover that their favorite denomination / sect / cult is just one among tens of thousands that belong to the Christian Club – and that there is GREAT variation in beliefs within the umbrella of ‘Christianity’.

4 Eastern Orthodox
5 Catholic

5.1 Latin (Western) Church
5.2 Eastern Catholic Churches
5.2.1 Alexandrian Rite
5.2.2 Armenian Rite
5.2.3 Byzantine Rite
5.2.4 East Syriac Rite
5.2.5 West Syriac Rite

6 Protestantism

6.1 Proto-Protestant
6.2 Lutheranism
6.2.1 Radical Pietism
6.3 Anabaptism
6.3.1 Schwarzenau Brethren Movement
6.4 Anglicanism
6.4.1 Anglican Communion
6.4.1.1 United and uniting churches of the Anglican Communion
6.4.2 Other Anglican churches and Continuing Anglican movement
6.5 Methodism
6.5.1 Holiness movement
6.6 Reformed Protestantism (Calvinism)
6.6.1 Continental Reformed churches
6.6.2 Presbyterianism
6.6.3 Congregationalism
6.7 Baptists
6.7.1 Holiness Baptists
6.7.2 Spiritual Baptist
6.8 Quakers (Society of Friends)
6.8.1 Shakers
6.9 Plymouth Brethren
6.10 Irvingism and the Catholic Apostolic Church Movement
6.11 Campbellism and Millerism (Restorationist and Adventist)
6.11.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.11.2 Early Sabbath-Keeping Movements, predating Millerism
6.11.3 Millerism and comparable groups
6.11.4 Adventist Movement (Sunday observing)
6.11.5 Adventist Movement (Seventh Day Sabbath/Saturday observing)
6.12 Pentecostal and Charismatic
6.12.1 Pentecostal Holiness Movement
6.12.2 Other Charismatic movements
6.12.3 Neo-Charismatic Movement
6.13 Uniting and United churches movement
6.13.1 Free Evangelical Churches
6.14 Evangelical Christianity and interdenominational churches
6.14.1 Chinese Evangelicalism
6.14.2 Ethiopian Evangelicalism (P'ent'ay)
6.14.3 Japanese Evangelicalism
6.14.3.1 Internet churches

7 Nontrinitarian Protestantism

7.1 Oneness Pentecostalism
7.2 Unitarian and Universalist
7.3 Nontrinitarian Restorationism
7.3.1 American Israelism and Latter Day Saint movement
7.3.1.1 "Prairie Saint" LDS denominations
7.3.1.2 "Rocky Mountain" LDS denomination(s)
7.3.1.3 Fundamentalist Rocky Mountain LDS denominations
7.3.1.4 Other LDS denominations
7.3.2 British Israelism
7.3.2.1 World Wide Church of God splinter groups
7.3.3 Bible Students and splinter groups
7.3.4 Spanish groups
7.3.5 Philippine groups
7.4 Swedenborgianism
7.5 Christian Science
7.6 Esoteric Christianity (Gnosticism)
7.7 Other Nontrinitarians

8 Other Protestant churches and movements

8.1 Asian Independent Churches
8.1.1 Chinese Independent Churches
8.1.2 Japanese Independent Churches

9 Torah Observant
10 Miscellaneous Christian groups

10.1 Independent Catholicism
10.2 Independent Eastern Orthodoxy
10.2.1 True Orthodoxy
10.2.1.1 Old Believers
10.2.2 Syncretic Eastern Orthodoxy
10.2.3 Other Independent Eastern Orthodox movements
10.3 Independent Oriental Orthodoxy
10.3.1 Syncretic Oriental Orthodoxy
10.4 Protestant Eastern Christianity
10.5 Southcottism
10.6 Christian Identity (syncretic white supremacist churches)
10.7 Independent/Isolated
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ANY of the thousands of "gods" proposed, imagined, worshiped, loved, feared, and/or fought over by humans MAY exist -- awaiting verifiable evidence

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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #13

Post by 1213 »

benchwarmer wrote:
1213 wrote:
Zzyzx wrote: ...Tens of thousands of Christian denominations are the result of such splitting....
Do you know where could I find a list of all those denominations?
Is your Google broken?

Mine found the following in less that 5 seconds:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C ... ominations
https://www.christianity.com/church/denominations/
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/branches

....
Yes, and you didn’t find what I asked. I tried to find a simple list with 10000 denominations and didn’t find. I was hoping Zzyzx would have had that. Also, for example in the Wikipedia, it has:

“…Presbyterian Church in Liberia
Presbyterian Church in Malaysia
Presbyterian Church in Singapore
Presbyterian Church in Sudan
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan
Presbyterian Church in Uganda
Presbyterian Church of Africa…�


I would count all Presbyterian Churches the same, even if they are in different country.

But, my point is not to question the claim, I just hoped there would be a simple list of all those denominations.

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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #14

Post by Tcg »

1213 wrote:
I would count all Presbyterian Churches the same, even if they are in different country.

There is clear evidence that this would not be a valid approach:

Image

This chart focuses on the U.S. Imagine how hard it would be to read if it involved a world-wide view.


Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

- American Atheists


Not believing isn't the same as believing not.

- wiploc


I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.

- Irvin D. Yalom

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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #15

Post by Zzyzx »

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[Replying to post 14 by Tcg]

It never ceases to amaze me how LITTLE many professed Christians know about Christianity (and about the Bible). Some seem to equate multiple VERY divergent sects as though there was some unity in the umbrella / bubble of Christianity.

How much unity exists between RCC, LDS/FLDS, Pentecostals, JW, 7Day, CS, etc?

Look up FLDS for an eye-opener. I was married to a woman who escaped from that cult and who was a niece of Warren Jeffs, the imprisoned cult leader. For starters, '"A man must have three wives to achieve the 'Celestial Kingdom' and a woman can get there only if 'sealed' to a man who is going"). Compare that to the
Shakers, another 'Christian' sect.

Perhaps knowing too much is detrimental to one's 'faith'.

A few who post here for a while seem to gain a bit of education -- from Non-Christians -- then disappear. Were they overwhelmed by new information? Did they start to see that Christianity is actually composed of a large number of divergent views using the same name? Might they have begun to doubt their assumptions? Did they discover that what they have been indoctrinated to believe is simply cult propaganda for their sect?

Theists who continue to post tend to defend their own personal version of belief (whatever it may be, including PCE -- and 'direct supernatural communication') as though that represented Christianity.
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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #16

Post by benchwarmer »

1213 wrote:
benchwarmer wrote:
1213 wrote:
Zzyzx wrote: ...Tens of thousands of Christian denominations are the result of such splitting....
Do you know where could I find a list of all those denominations?
Is your Google broken?

Mine found the following in less that 5 seconds:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C ... ominations
https://www.christianity.com/church/denominations/
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/branches

....
Yes, and you didn’t find what I asked. I tried to find a simple list with 10000 denominations and didn’t find. I was hoping Zzyzx would have had that. Also, for example in the Wikipedia, it has:

“…Presbyterian Church in Liberia
Presbyterian Church in Malaysia
Presbyterian Church in Singapore
Presbyterian Church in Sudan
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan
Presbyterian Church in Uganda
Presbyterian Church of Africa…�


I would count all Presbyterian Churches the same, even if they are in different country.

But, my point is not to question the claim, I just hoped there would be a simple list of all those denominations.
Well, it's going to be hard to find a 'simple' list given there are so many of them. I pointed you to a database of Christian denominations though I realize now that there appears to be a pay wall in front of the info. A little bit more googling will find you all kinds of stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C ... of_members

https://www.seiyaku.com/reference/denom ... -list.html

I'm sure you will quickly see, if you are willing to do a little digging, that there are indeed thousands of different denominations. Many are slight variations on others.

Honestly, the fact that there is more than one should be a red flag. This means that the source material (evidence) for the religion is so scant and open to interpretation that it's quite easy to have all kinds of groups proclaiming to be Christians and all have different ideas about what that means.

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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #17

Post by Zzyzx »

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1213 wrote: But, my point is not to question the claim,
Didn't you just try to counter the claim -- with a comment about several Presbyterian denominations being one?
1213 wrote: I just hoped there would be a simple list of all those denominations.
Just idle curiosity?

Plan to invite them to a conference?

Starting a legitimate research project?
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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #18

Post by 1213 »

Zzyzx wrote: ...
Didn't you just try to counter the claim -- with a comment about several Presbyterian denominations being one? ...
I think it is interesting, if location makes denomination. That would mean that also atheism has many denominations, as many as there is countries that have atheists. I think it is ridiculous, but if that is how people think, so be it.

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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #19

Post by benchwarmer »

1213 wrote:
Zzyzx wrote: ...
Didn't you just try to counter the claim -- with a comment about several Presbyterian denominations being one? ...
I think it is interesting, if location makes denomination. That would mean that also atheism has many denominations, as many as there is countries that have atheists. I think it is ridiculous, but if that is how people think, so be it.
No one is saying that location makes a denomination. The point is that location is used as a way to classify the DIFFERENT denominations within Presbyterian churches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterianism

Why is it that the non theists are doing all the research when it's so easy to find this stuff online? What I think is ridiculous is how some people would rather just ignore all the information that is presented and then make up stuff rather than go actually research what is presented.

If you think all Presbyterian churches are exactly the same, please provide some evidence of this rather than just assuming things.

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Re: Claims and Stories

Post #20

Post by 1213 »

benchwarmer wrote: ...
If you think all Presbyterian churches are exactly the same, please provide some evidence of this rather than just assuming things.
Ok, I think that is too far off topic. I can agree that there is more than one denomination, the exact number doesn’t really matter in this case. It is interesting why there is so many denominations, when the teachings of Jesus are one. Christian meant originally a disciple of Jesus. If people are truly Christian, they should be loyal to Jesus and his teachings. Then there would be only one Christian group. But apparently many “Christian� really like more of their own doctrines than words of Jesus, which is quite sad, because:

"If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
John 8:31-32

It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.
John 6:63

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