anti-christ discussion, from middle p. 3 to end.

[huckelberry]

Ideas born of science have clearly and incontrovertibly overturned plenty of "truths" which were once "known" through faith. I'm confident everyone here could cite examples.

Honest question. What about the other direction?

Do examples exist of ideas born of faith which have clearly and incontrovertibly overturned "truths" which were once "known" through science?

John Browns body lies a moldering in the grave but his truth is marching on.

[huckelberry]

Ideas born of science have clearly and incontrovertibly overturned plenty of "truths" which were once "known" through faith. I'm confident everyone here could cite examples.

Honest question. What about the other direction?

Do examples exist of ideas born of faith which have clearly and incontrovertibly overturned "truths" which were once "known" through science?

A second response: What in the world do you mean by putting known in quotation marks? Science actually knows stuff even if incomplete.
I believe science studies the real world which was created by God. It is thus an unraveling of a revelation direct from God to us.

"ideas born of faith" I think this phrase has effect before cause.

[Dr Moore]

"ideas born of faith" I think this phrase has effect before cause.

Absolutely. That's why I ask the question.

[Dr Exiled]

I think it was Bart Ehrman who said that he thought Jesus was probably a revolutionary who got caught by the romans and crucified for attempting to start a revolution. The other stuff is probably paul and other later christian writers inserting their views.

Dr Exiled,
I am sure there are some scholars who have read Jesus this way. My understanding is that Ehrman is of the school that reads Jesus as a messianic prophet teaching righteousness for the kingdom of heaven. The sayings we read may have been adjusted or added to in combination but would be in the ball park of what Jesus went about preaching.

Ill have to find the quote. I believe it was in response to a question asked of him when he (Ehrman) was promoting a book and perhaps was debating an evangelical. Anyway, he said that his research led him to the conclusion that Jesus was a revolutionary preacher looking to overthrow Rome and was caught, and crucified forbit.

[Philo Sofee]

Just coincidentally, someone posted this on reddit:

Taken from a devotional address delivered to the students at Brigham Young University on December 16, 1969.
Printed in the New Era 1984:

"Of all the people in Christendom, we Latter-day Saints are the only ones in a position to reap the full blessings of the spirit of Christ in our lives..."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... nd_really/

This is simply nonsense of the highest calibre. It is delusion of incredible proportions. I quit drinking this kind of Kool Aid a looooong time ago. How do they KNOW Jesus doesn't divvy out inspiration to anyone he damn well wants to?! The sheer arrogance is based on ineptitude of grasping what charity is and the Love of God. They imagine since they can't and don't love the world, then neither can Jesus. And, it wouldn't surprise me if their Jesus can't do this and doesn't. I don't buy this for an Idaho minute, not even maybe. Sheer PFFFFFT!

[Lem]

Just coincidentally, someone posted this on reddit:

This is simply nonsense of the highest calibre. It is delusion of incredible proportions. I quit drinking this kind of Kool Aid a looooong time ago. How do they KNOW Jesus doesn't divvy out inspiration to anyone he damn well wants to?! The sheer arrogance is based on ineptitude of grasping what charity is and the Love of God. They imagine since they can't and don't love the world, then neither can Jesus. And, it wouldn't surprise me if their Jesus can't do this and doesn't. I don't buy this for an Idaho minute, not even maybe. Sheer PFFFFFT!

Absolutely. And yet, I have many LDS family members who still use arguments like this to shun my family. I find myself in the weirdest of positions- having to deal with this nonsensical position that leads to the shunning of my children, while trying to still respect the humanity of those who do the shunning. As I tell my children, I STILL consider it the single greatest accomplishment of my life that I, a 6th and 7th generation Mormon in EVERY SINGLE maternal and paternal line, have put them on a completely different path.

They have no idea what their life would have been like, BUT I DO.

[Philo Sofee]

I'm sorry you have these issues... they are very real, I know. However, and I am honestly not trying to sound like pie in the sky, but, and I don't know how, these could be good opportunities somewhere in the mess. With every problem there is a solution. See? Pie in the sky! Sorry......

[Lem]

I'm sorry you have these issues... they are very real, I know. However, and I am honestly not trying to sound like pie in the sky, but, and I don't know how, these could be good opportunities somewhere in the mess. With every problem there is a solution. See? Pie in the sky! Sorry......

that's what I tell my kids! I get a lot of mileage out of "you have NO IDEA how good you have it...."

[honorentheos]

I find myself in the weirdest of positions- having to deal with this nonsensical position that leads to the shunning of my children, while trying to still respect the humanity of those who do the shunning. As I tell my children, I STILL consider it the single greatest accomplishment of my life that I, a 6th and 7th generation Mormon in EVERY SINGLE maternal and paternal line, have put them on a completely different path.

They have no idea what their life would have been like, BUT I DO.

That's a great thought, Lem. Since leaving the church I've had mixed reactions from family and consider myself fortunate that it hasn't resulted in blatant hostility in the family. But it does require reflection on how to behave myself in a genuine, other-affirming way because they are still Mormon and live the Mormon life, talk about Mormonism, and quickly run out of social capital to spend if you don't have Mormonism in common. It leaves me to reflect on how to be present that isn't disrespectful or seem disdainful if they aren't really trying to shove something down my throat but just talking about the things they talk about normally. I like how you put it, respecting their humanity even as they might be inclined to shun. Or even when they aren't attempting to shun but are clearly in a Mormon social rut. I could say that Mormonism didn't give me great tools for that because for the most part it didn't. But that's not entirely true. My mission president was more cosmopolitan than many, and I learned from both him and his wife things I never learned in an LDS chapel or Sunday School class. So it wouldn't be fair to ignore that.

I'm also probably bad at doing what you do because every time we come back from visiting family in Utah my daughter comes home with story after story of how weird she finds the thinking of her believing cousins, uncles and aunts. So I guess the trade off is your kids can have a better idea of how life could have turned out had you stayed in and ran them on the Mormon treadmill to temple marriage, but they'll have to give up something. I have no idea how to explain to my daughter that it's more of a, "There, but for the grace of goddess, go I" situation than it is one that justifies feeling special. It's hard to feel lucky when you weren't dodging the bullet but just born out of circumstances made possible by the bullet being dodged.

[honorentheos]

Honorentheos, I am repelled by the chick comix colored description of Christianity you describe. It is simply not stuff I believe. But at the same time you present a thoughtful image of the kind of understanding that has made Christianity a problem. I suspect that you think this way of seeing is built into the foundation of Christianity enough that it does not go away. The past few years has it made in increasingly difficult for me to not see that what appears to be a large portion of Christian believers pretty much swallow the Chick version whole.

You asked us to consider how few people who have lived have lived in a culture where Christian belief is available. Unless one thinks that only people wearing a Christian badge or id avoid hell then this population ratio would do little to indicate that Christianity is anti human.

I guess the question is if you and I are closer to one another than one might suppose if we both reject the concept of Christ in substance even if I am doing so in name as well?

I don't think the question is one of being for or against ideals one may associate with Christian belief in it's most gentle forms per se. The question is how does one maintain Christ in the center of this belief pattern when Christ as a concept is a savior in the sense that he destroys to make whole?

It's easy to argue we agree that one shouldn't go around destroying cities in the name of God. It's easy to agree on principle that it's not very enlightened to hope someone else suffers immensely for believing differently, or wanting to see them get a comeuppance of some kind that proves one right. But we probably don't agree that the Christ-myth's reliance on a fallen world to give purpose to a redeemer is cause for hope. I think both belief in the fallen state of the world and Christ as savior go hand-in-hand. To believe in Christ is to accept the world is fallen, that people need redeemed from their fallen state, and with that there is special knowledge that, once gained, will make this clear and help set a person on the correct path. And this means that the majority of humanity spent their entire existence in an unfortunate fallen state. Or, perhaps, you believe they are just fine and it doesn't matter in this life or the next, then what's the point of Christ again? Is it really just a flavor of wisdom tradition? Then it seems we've both jettisoned the Christ concept from our personal worldviews. I don't think you mean that, though.

An anecdote: When I was a missionary in Switzerland I hadn't really met many people who weren't LDS but also religious. I had the unusual experience of having gone through Army Basic Training and AIT before receiving my call*. But in that limit exposure most people I got to know reinforced my prejudices. Turns out most people who are in their late teens/early twenties and out on their own potentially for the first time are not in the same mind space as this dope from Utah who was expecting to return from training in time to spend the next two years preaching Jesus and the Book of Mormon.

Once I was spending every day seeking out people interested in talking about God, this was challenged. This included people who were Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and nothing at all. And frankly, it was difficult to sincerely contrast some of these people with the typical ward member let alone the really difficult ward members. My way of squaring the circle was to believe they were all good people who were almost certainly going to be just fine in the afterlife because God was just and merciful so once the dust settled during the resurrection they got to be part of, God would sort it all out and it'd be as it should be. Who cares if brother so-and-so is a jerk but by all metrics in the Church is headed for the highest degree of the Celestial kingdom along with his proud-to-be-a-BYU-grad-in-Europe wife. According to my thinking then, those people just lacked priesthood and correct knowledge but otherwise were people I wanted to be like. So once restored to their perfect form they'd receive the bit they were missing and all would be well. And the proud, kinda dickish ward members would be restored to their perfect form and receive the bits they were missing...maybe? Well, God will sort it out and it will be as it should be, right?

It took time, reflection, and reading to come to the realization that the framing was the problem here. I can't help reframing what I experience through my worldview, just as others can't help doing so themselves. But there is a need to realize that the reframing is happening. Once one examines the frame, well...

*short explanation: I wanted to serve but told recruiter who came to our high school I was going on a mission first, recruiter presented option to join as a reservist to be able to spend my 18th year doing training rather than throw a year away waiting to turn 19, then go IRR for religious service reasons, then come back and choose to go active or stay reserve. worked out.