A True Christian Church? (1 Viewer)

[mattd259]

I read on Wikipedia that there are something like 38,000 Christian denominations, and they all teach and preach different things. so inevitably some denominations are gonna be more "right" than others.. and that got me pondering about a few things.. here are some of the things i was thinking about.

-What defines a "church"?
-Is there any Christian Church that is 100% "true"?
-If not, is there any church that adheres more closely to Christ's teachings than the rest?
-If so, how do we know it? since every denomination claims that it's interpretation of the Bible is most correct.
-Did God leave the bible up for interpretation?
-Did Christ intend to institute a church himself, and if so which one? and would it be the most "true"?
-Or did mankind institute all the churches?


If you could answer some of the above questions to get the discussion rolling, that would be good. what do all you christians have to say about it?

 

[zombie omie jay]

no to all

 

[brendroid]

'Is there any Christian Church that is 100% "true"' - no

'...did mankind istitute all churches' - no



Love all these people who are on auto-pilot answering.

Considering that the term church is applied to various religions (including Scientology), I guess one way to describe it might be a religious community. Is any Christian Church 100% true? How can we ever know? We have some people who believe that a wide array of different ones are true, and then others who believe that they're all false. I suppose in that regard it becomes a subjective matter for most.

Considering that, outside of religious texts, there is little written evidence for Christ's teachings from the time, there is little evidence to suggest that any particular Christian church has gotten it right. Look at what happened in about 800 AD - Mohammed told his interpretation of that faith and believed the Catholics got it wrong.

You look at the Bible and some bits appear either false or metaphoric. Some people choose the latter, and in that case then it could be decided that it was for interpretation.

Well, let's rule out the Church of England - we all know that one was instituted by Henry the Eighth.

And did mankind institute all churches? Some people would say that humanity did, others would say that Chirst instituted them all.

And I can see this becoming a complete shitstorm, jsyk

 

[thongetsu]

the answer to the first 3 questions is 14 the rest can be answered with wet pussy

 

[mattd259]

'Is there any Christian Church that is 100% "true"' - no

'...did mankind istitute all churches' - no



Love all these people who are on auto-pilot answering.

Considering that the term church is applied to various religions (including Scientology), I guess one way to describe it might be a religious community. Is any Christian Church 100% true? How can we ever know? We have some people who believe that a wide array of different ones are true, and then others who believe that they're all false. I suppose in that regard it becomes a subjective matter for most.

Considering that, outside of religious texts, there is little written evidence for Christ's teachings from the time, there is little evidence to suggest that any particular Christian church has gotten it right. Look at what happened in about 800 AD - Mohammed told his interpretation of that faith and believed the Catholics got it wrong.

You look at the Bible and some bits appear either false or metaphoric. Some people choose the latter, and in that case then it could be decided that it was for interpretation.

Well, let's rule out the Church of England - we all know that one was instituted by Henry the Eighth.

And did mankind institute all churches? Some people would say that humanity did, others would say that Chirst instituted them all.

And I can see this becoming a complete shitstorm, jsyk

Thats my point exactly. Christ was meant to be the "light" of the world, and yet modern Christianity is so confused, with so many different interpretations of Jesus' teaching through thousands of different churches.

If Christ truly was God, and he intended to teach some sort of objective truth, then it seems he has failed, since modern Christianity as a whole doesnt really seem to know what Jesus actually taught. As you said yourself, its a subjective matter for most. So, if no church is true, and Christ intended that a Christian should take Christianity as a whole, (with the many contradicting views of its denominations), then i think Christ has failed, because at the moment, Christianity as a whole is haywire.

The only alternative that i can see that still asserts Christ's divinity and his success in preaching his word, is a Church (not just a community of religious believers, but a governing body) that has the authority to interpret the Bible and Christs teachings in accordance with what Christ actually intended when he taught it.

So then, how can a Christian know which church, if any, has such power? Well, that Church would have to have authority (latin root: originating from the "aucter" or author ie. Christ).
So i think that it would be fair to say, that if such a Church existed, it would have to have been instituted by Christ, not by humans.

Through the same theological reasoning, i think Christians can come to an understanding of the Christianity that Christ would have intended. This is just a discussion about how christians can come to know these things. I dont think it will be a "shitstorm".

If anyone disagrees with anything i have said, please feel free to comment

 

[mitchy_boy]

Did God leave the bible up for interpretation?

Why don't we go and ask him?

 

[Scorch]

Half of the problem is that the reliability of the gospels as sources is absolutely shit, they were most likely edited by the early Church to fit whatever point was convenient to them and that most of the theology of the Christian church is drawn from someone that never even met Jesus in his lifetime (Paul).

As a book, the Bible is both factually and logically, it it entirely flawed at the most basic level.

When you try and split hairs between interpretations of such a source that quite likely is a distant and vague reflection of the original theology of Jesus, who was simply a deluded cultist with a killer post-mortem PR office, no one will ever be right.

 

[mattd259]

What makes you think that the Christian Church edited the accounts of the the writers of the gospels? Is it just speculation or is there a specific reason?

 

[abbeyroad]

Why don't we go and ask him?

I'm more than happy to arrange the meeting for you.

 

[Scorch]

What makes you think that the Christian Church edited the accounts of the the writers of the gospels? Is it just speculation or is there a specific reason?

Well, for example, two of the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) give genealogies of Joseph's line to show that Jesus is related to David, which would fulfill the Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah being of the line of David. Now this makes sense only if Jesus is biologically related to Joseph.

Yet he isn't, is he? He is apparently born of a virgin. Yet this idea of virgin birth develops quite late in the process as far as the myth of Jesus is concerned.

The doctrine of virgin birth was most likely borrowed from mystery religions such as the cult of Mithras which were direct rivals of Christianity, in terms of messianic cults, and these genealogies, which make sense to have been included without the virgin birth as it allows them to tick off yet another prophecy they have made Jesus fulfill in their literary account. It is rather obvious that such genealogies are remnants of a version of these Gospels that existed prior to the borrowing of the virgin birth concept by the Early Church.

That's just one example off the top of my head. However the Gospels also distort history to serve their purpose and make up events and historical fallacies to legitimize Jesus' divine claim.

 

[xeuyrawp]

Well, for example, two of the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) give genealogies of Joseph's line to show that Jesus is related to David, which would fulfill the Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah being of the line of David. Now this makes sense only if Jesus is biologically related to Joseph.

Yet he isn't, is he? He is apparently born of a virgin. Yet this idea of virgin birth develops quite late in the process as far as the myth of Jesus is concerned.

There are conflicting accounts (of course), his biological mother was said to be a descendant from Nathan. His 'father' was said to be a descendant of Solomon. So even if his father wasn't his biological father (which is not the point), his biological mother still was related to David.

So your point is completely invalid.

Half of the problem is that the reliability of the gospels as sources is absolutely shit

Are you just referring to the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (=Gospels) or the entire Bible?

What makes you think that the Christian Church edited the accounts of the the writers of the gospels? Is it just speculation or is there a specific reason?

How can you be a Christian and not even know the basic text critical facts about your religious texts? There are many, many documented examples of edition of the Synoptic Gospels, the rest of the NT, and of course the entire OT.

Sticking to just the Synoptic Gospels, think about the massive text-critical processes:
- Huge gap between our earliest extant copies and the actual date of events,
- How the various languages influenced versions, especially modern versions,
- Major (possible) additions; three in the Synoptic Gospels alone,
- And, of course most recently, the various authorities in how to collate, translate, and interpret the rather varied non-corpus of texts that is the Bible.

 

[katie tully]

I don't know what this thread is about, but I don't like it.

 

[katie tully]

-What defines a "church"?
-Is there any Christian Church that is 100% "true"?
-If not, is there any church that adheres more closely to Christ's teachings than the rest?
-If so, how do we know it? since every denomination claims that it's interpretation of the Bible is most correct.
-Did God leave the bible up for interpretation?
-Did Christ intend to institute a church himself, and if so which one? and would it be the most "true"?
-Or did mankind institute all the churches?



ugh who gives a shit
i don't give a shit if they can some how find a way to indulge themselves in their fairy tale bullshit without deliberately imposing their beliefs on me by way of political or social decisions. and if they would kindly fuck off with putting shit in my mail box.

otherwise i dont care

do not
care

 

[HalcyonSky]

I read on Wikipedia that there are something like 38,000 Christian denominations, and they all teach and preach different things. so inevitably some denominations are gonna be more "right" than others.. and that got me pondering about a few things.. here are some of the things i was thinking about.

-What defines a "church"?
-Is there any Christian Church that is 100% "true"?
-If not, is there any church that adheres more closely to Christ's teachings than the rest?
-If so, how do we know it? since every denomination claims that it's interpretation of the Bible is most correct.
-Did God leave the bible up for interpretation?
-Did Christ intend to institute a church himself, and if so which one? and would it be the most "true"?
-Or did mankind institute all the churches?


If you could answer some of the above questions to get the discussion rolling, that would be good. what do all you christians have to say about it?

yes mankind instituted churches just as mankind created the bible and the notion of god

well done! finally a christian that has a brain evolved beyond grade 2 level

and if i remember correctly 'christ' was against the notion of a church

 

[HalcyonSky]

out of boredom i was watching the christian channel last night at about 3am, saw about 3 different sermons or whatever the fuck it is when theres a guy preaching in a church

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM had the blatant motive of raising profits for their particular church, it was fucking hilarious how they managed to start going on about how god wants the people to give their money to the church without anyone blinking or thinking twice about it

 

[Scorch]

There are conflicting accounts (of course), his biological mother was said to be a descendant from Nathan. His 'father' was said to be a descendant of Solomon. So even if his father wasn't his biological father (which is not the point), his biological mother still was related to David.

So your point is completely invalid.

No. The Greek word used by the Bible consistently to refer to this succession of genealogies is 'sperma', literally seed. This is not a concept of idea that can be transferred through women. This also doesn't deal with the fact that the genealogies I mentioned were specifically those of Joseph with no mention of Mary.

Are you just referring to the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (=Gospels) or the entire Bible?

Well were we to narrow it to the New Testament, I was talking about the Gospels, in this case. But the Old Testament makes basic historical errors and makes up stories as well, the entirety of Exodus, for example.

 

[xeuyrawp]

No. The Greek word used by the Bible consistently to refer to this succession of genealogies is 'sperma', literally seed.

I know you're a Classicist, so it's hard to grasp this idea, but only the New Testament (and not the whole Bible) was written in Greek. The Greeks and Romans didn't create the whole world. The Old Testament (like other Ancient Near Eastern texts) constructs genealogies in various lexico-semantic ways, all of which are patrilineal. However, someone's mother is still often used in a construction of a genealogy of their children, especially if they were of note. I can think of dozens of examples in the Old Testament, the early Mesopotamian texts, Egyptian texts, Akkadian and Hittite royal correspondence texts (which often utilise a brief genealogy), etc.

But going back to the Greek of the New Testament: I'm not fluent in Koine Greek and I'm not particularly familiar with the New Testament texts as you claim to be, however:
- Luke (3:23-) traces Jesus' lineage with ᾿Ιησοῦς ... υἱός ᾿Ιωσήφ 'Jesus, son of Joseph', but then has τοῦ x 'who was of x' for all the people going back to God,
- Matthew (1-) traces Jesus' lineage via two constructions: either x υἱοῦ y 'x son of y', or x ἐγέννησε τὸν y 'x begot y'.

As far as I can tell, neither of the two Synoptic Gospels' accounts of Jesus' genealogy is constructed with anything like 'sperma'. 'Sperma' seems to be used in the sense of 'Jesus was born from the seed (sperma) of David', but what other way can they express that Jesus was a descendant of David; 'Jesus was born from the womb of David'?

tl;dr: You're wrong (again).

 

[katietheskatie]

rob knows his shit

 

[Venetiad]

Is it really wise to use the Bible to defend Christianity? I think not. The objectivity of the Bible is just, non existant. Really.

Additionally, as previously posted, some denominations believe that the Bible isn't to be taken literally, that it's more of a metaphorical story. Or is that just the OT?
NT being entirelly literal?

 

[SeCKSiiMiNh]

I read on Wikipedia that there are something like 38,000 Christian denominations, and they all teach and preach different things. so inevitably some denominations are gonna be more "right" than others.. and that got me pondering about a few things.. here are some of the things i was thinking about.

-What defines a "church"?
-Is there any Christian Church that is 100% "true"?
-If not, is there any church that adheres more closely to Christ's teachings than the rest?
-If so, how do we know it? since every denomination claims that it's interpretation of the Bible is most correct.
-Did God leave the bible up for interpretation?
-Did Christ intend to institute a church himself, and if so which one? and would it be the most "true"?
-Or did mankind institute all the churches?


If you could answer some of the above questions to get the discussion rolling, that would be good. what do all you christians have to say about it?

who gives a fuck.
theyre all shit alrite?