yep. That still doesn't explain why the fact seems so weird, though. Some people might expect that because there isn't a general election to keep things on track, that there would at least be some restriction in canon law. But it really is up to just the few Cardinals to not elect Incompetent Bob as the next leader of a faith with almost more members than China
While we're on the subject, one main way to make expert material comprehensible to laymen is to use jargon as little as possible and to explain the jargon when used.
@Alypius Is it offensive to you, being Catholic, to ask "Why do 7th day Adventists think the office of the papacy is the anti-christ?" I suggest a grain of salt with everything, here. If you are offended by the mere fact that this opinion exists then you are going to be offended often on a site like this.
@jonericson I made a comment here for you but for got to address you.
I'm about to ask "did Jesus really die?" - "if God was so powerful, then how could he really die?"... @PeterTurner did a good job of this recently with the "a coworker asked me" post
I assume you do, because you say that those who are offended should take things with a grain of salt. It is offensive. Try asking "Do 7th day Adventists think the office of the papacy is the anti-christ?" instead. I'm not offended because I'm a Catholic, but because I'm not sure that Adventists really want that view attributed to them
@fredsbend Yeah. I looked that up and figured out what you meant. When you start with "I am familiar with the Roman Catholic Church's account..." I expected a Catholic account to follow. I sort of doubt "the shrine to Pan" shows up in their version of the founding of the church. (But I'm willing to be shown wrong. ;-)
that the office of the papacy is the anti-christ? That's like saying that the presidency is the anti-christ... they think that whoever is currently Pope is the anti-christ?
@fredsbend A chat tip for you (and @Alypius too): when you move your mouse over a chat message, you will see a down arrow on the left. If you click it, one of the options you will see is "reply to this message". Use that, and that will make it MUCH easier for other people to tell which message you're replying to.
@fredsbend I'm not so sure, but I think my criteria worked out. You thought it was probably offensive, and really it doesn't seem like a good question.
This type of question can be problematic for several reasons.
If no one is here to defend the viewpoint in question, we could easily degenerate to arguing against a straw man.
If the viewpoint in question does have an ardent defender, the question could lead to debate and argument.
In general, ...
@JonEricson Yes I have read that. It is good. But I think those questions should be allowed to a degree. To Adventists, that is a major doctrine, the point of this site is to talk about them. Now the idea is a bit outlandish to most so I stand that it is an honest question that deserves and answer and can find a home on this site.
ok, then I would need to flag the question. But when I did, @Caleb told me to edit it. The question isn't about the RCC at all, and the RCC doesn't even need to be mentioned
@Alypius The problem wasn't editing, it was how you edited it. Among other things, you removed half the question. I didn't even look closely at what the edit was intended to do, and already that was too much of a change, hence the "radical change" reject reason.
at the moment, even the title is "offensive", because it implies ("have you stopped beating your wife") that there weren't really any denominations, until the RCC came along
@Alypius Despite what the RCC claims I want to see the history of sects in the early church supported with manuscripts. I agreed already the question and its title need work.
the entire first half of the question that I deleted is just "hey, well I know that whole thing about how Catholics think Jesus gave Peter the keys while standing on an altar to a pagan god, but..."
@El'endiaStarman I know, but you're still the one that rejected the edit
Yeah. I'm saying I don't want an answer like that. I have already seen it and as far as I know is not in a manuscript other than the bible. Seculars do not accept the bible as historic, mostly
@Alypius I see it being relevant in the sense that the RCC believes they were the first church group, so there wouldn't have been any denomination, but not everyone agrees with/believes that.
@Alypius My point was the "approve or reject suggested edits" part. My action wasn't a mod action. [shrugs] I'm part of the community, and not one of the regulars agrees with the others on everything. :P
Because I already know a lot about it. I want to exclude it from the answers. Unless there are manuscripts that actually talk about RCC expliticly in the timeframe I gave
@El'endiaStarman I can't tell the difference, all I see is a rejected edit, and an earlier rejected flag with @Caleb telling me I can just do this myself without needing his mod intervention :)
OH. ALSO, an important thing to note: it is preferable for the original poster to edit their own question to fix a problem. We regulars/mods usually try to help new users learn how to use the site, and part of that is editing their own questions to fix problems based on the suggestions of other members of the community.
@JonEricson I don't think this is a matter of me not knowing the ropes, but of a question that is implying certain "offensive" things for no good reason
@Alypius Well, I'm telling you that the reason is that the person asking the question doesn't know the answer. That might not be a good reason, but it is a reason that we have to deal with on sites like this.
@fredsbend read the right side, manuscripts is still there
@JonEricson the asker isn't asking whether the RCC was the first denomination in the same way that someone saying "did you stop beating your wife?" isn't asking whether or not you beat your wife...
(Another chat tip: if you type an @ symbol, and then start typing a user's name, you will see a horizontal list of options. The tab key can be used to select them.)
Does history support (e.g. through manuscripts from ancient writers, not the Bible) there being distinct Christian sects that non-Christians recognized as different before the third century? Or does the history support that there was pretty much only one flavor of Christianity? I don't mean the s...
I'm about to ask "Did Jesus really die?" with "I know that Jesus is really God. But I'm still confused, because I don't get how God could die or be killed by people. Isn't God always there?" - any potential problems or omissions here?
the point is to get an answer that can explain a difficult concept to a young child
@El'endiaStarman I'm pretty sure that all denominations agree that Christ died on the cross. I'm thinking to get away with not bringing in denominations, much like christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/2326/… and others
@El'endiaStarman does the question seem difficult enough to answer? I don't want someone to just say "yep" and then quote the part where Jesus died in the Bible
@Alypius Eh, I'm not so sure about that assumption. Aside from that, there are very few questions that are a good fit for this site without a denominational (or similar) framing. If it's denomination-agnostic, there's a good chance it'll be better on Biblical Hermeneutics. To use my Mormon/Protestant example, Mormons believe that Jesus wasn't actually God, so for Jesus to die does not pose the same conundrum as it would to a Protestant.
@Alypius Well, remember that this site is not about what is true, but rather what is believed. Just say something like "Most Christians believe that Jesus is and was God" and then continue on. Simply identify the assumptions made and the viewpoint requested, and you'll be fine.
@Alypius: Feel free to post the body of the question here and ask for improvement suggestions.
"I know that Jesus is really God. But I'm still confused... I don't get how God could die or be killed by people. Isn't God always there? How can God die?" (that's all)
My attempt: "From a Trinitarian viewpoint, Jesus is God, and yet He died on the cross. How is it possible for an omnipresent God to die? (A ____ perspective is requested here.)"
@Alypius I know Mormons don't and I don't think Jehovah's Witnesses believe that either. At least, not in the sense of being coeternal with the Father.
from the question, does it seem like I'm intentionally trying to push the idea that Jesus is God or something, or does it seem like I don't understand how God can die?
@Alypius Compared to the average question here, that's actually a pretty simple question. It's two (three) sentences for crying out loud! Also, Google's search engine favors StackExchange sites due to the nature of their core features.
@Alypius Honestly, I think the biggest problem you're going to encounter is new users posting low-quality answers. Happens all the time on the site on all sorts of questions, but it'll happen more often on questions that the poster thinks they know the answer to.
Excellent! First answer is from a high-rep user! :D
@Alypius Oi, that guy. Just...leave comments trying to prompt him to improve his post quality, and if he doesn't improve, we mods have ways to deal with him.
@Alypius Please note that I told you you could edit, but in the same breath that I disagreed with what you were proposing about the question. I specifically explained that I thought what you were proposing would gut the question of the issues that needed clearing up. How are answers supposed to help clarify things for the OP if the OP's questions are sanitized of any mis-understandings?
It might help if you gave more context about why you are interested. As it is now, the question sounds like "can someone find me an old painting of Jesus with green eyes?", which might not be what this site is for... — Alypius5 hours ago
@Alypius Please be more careful about the way you interact with folks on the site, particularly other newbies. Things like the comment above are rather a put off. An origin of a genre of art question is actually on topic and hardly equivalent to what you suggest. You're still new here and not 100% up to speed with all that's going on, please lighten up on your criticism of other newcomers.
Telling other people what this site isn't for should be done much more sparingly -- first help them discover what it is for.
@Alypius We're not trying to be a replacement for every other question and answer engine. There are going to be questions that there are not a good way to ask here. Don't try to shoe horn them in just to have the question here.
@Alypius That's not a good example to use as precedent. It's from 2011 before we made some major reforms to the way we handle question scope.
@Alypius As El noted already, please don't keep trying to "get away with not bringing in denominations". We're actually focused on the other way around, most questions work better when framed inside of the current maze of differences between denominations.
Also it's better to stick to questions that you actually have. I don't hear in your question about Jesus dying any indication that that is actually a question YOU have. I know lots of people do -- that's a classic Muslim objection, but my guess is you already have an idea what you think on the matter. You'll have a much easier time around here asking questions you actually are trying to learn about.
Instead of asking such a general question (that you already know), ask something specific about an area you don't know -- or an aspect of that issue that you don't know how another tradition handles, etc.
@Alypius I deleted almost half his answers yesterday because they had nothing to do with the subject matter of the questions they were under. The remaining half at least hit the right topic, so they aren't going to get a moderator insta-delete --- but they are low quality. The guy could use some prompting in comments from the community observing that his posts are poorly formatted and difficult to understand, and that he's not referencing anything or showing who's views he's representing.
Most of them could probably use some downvotes, but be careful about doing more than a couple. Don't go through all his answers and just downvote them or SE will reverse your votes anyway. Just pick one or two to comment/vote on and leave the rest up to other people.
@Caleb To provide an example to Caleb's point here, this question of mine was significantly reworked by Caleb partly because it was clear that I wrote it with an answer in mind.
High rep community members can also vote to delete, and if he doesn't start improving his posts, eventually 3 delete votes will come in and they will be gone.
@Caleb I didn't say you endorsed, just that it seemed like I was getting directed one way then the other. It's fine to sanitize a question when the stuff has little to do with the question itself. I get that he was thinking of the RCC, and that he thinks that the RCC arose as a denomination, but I thought the question could be a lot cleaner that way. Keep in mind that I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the (minor) problems I see on this site
@Alypius I didn't direct you one way then the other. In one message I said "if anything it needs to be edited, but I suggest in this case editing would be a bad idea because..." and explained. I don't agree that what you were suggesting was necessary cleanup. The "clutter" was quite relevant to the question because it showed what the OP was confused about and gave a direction for answers to set the record straight. Removing that neutered it.
@Caleb well, I was trying to inform the user about potential problems, and from what I was told by people in this chat, especially in response to the issue of the question that was migrated, was that trivial stuff isn't quite on topic here. If that's what people I'm talking to here are telling me, what should I be telling others?
@Caleb I recall you saying "I didn't act on that because that's an action you can perform now" (I performed it, but then I was stuck after a rejected, and felt I needed to flag again) Anyway, this was resolved - my edits were applied, not that it did much to save the question
@Caleb while I'm aware that Jesus really died, I actually don't quite know how to clearly explain how it is that he died. I also didn't actually care too much (at first) whether angels could sing, but that turned out to be a pretty decent question, I think. I've been avoiding asking questions where I have a horse in the race, and I actually think that's for the best
> "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable"-Brennan Manning
And I've said before that I'd rather like to be Liberal Christian, but I can't convince myself it's true. (Also, I'm somewhat wary of beliefs I like. I stayed a Witness for longer precisely because I was gay, and therefore distrusted my own reasons for leaving. It can be hard to explain that to people.)
Not an entirely relevant response, but somewhat on topic.
As in, I tried very very hard to judge the evidence entirely on its merits, without letting social factors influence my decision. I won't say I was entirely successful in that endevour (humans are complex beings, and our motives for anything are rarely entirely pure), but I did try.
But people make their own decisions for their own reasons. When Greta Christina was writing Atheists and Anger (good book, by the way), she did a survey on her blog of the reasons people left religion. Quite varied. And hypocrisy is certainly a reason some people leave.
@TRiG Hmm. Ordinarily, I'd say something like "I might read that book someday," but given that I've got like 10 other books I'd like to read first...not gonna happen. :P
@TRiG Yeah, four years ago, I would've had all ten read in a couple months. Recently though, I haven't really been book-reading at all because of school and internet.
@El'endiaStarman it gets easier after college. I read in fits and starts now, but I didn't read anything in college (not even assigned stuff for the most part), now I'm reading a book or two a month.
@waxeagle I post short responses to* everything I read. And when it's a CS Lewis, I post a link here. * Responses to, not reviews of. They're too short to be reviews, mostly.
It's mainly just a way of keeping track, but it also pushes me to write something (I like writing, but I'm lazy, so a push is helpful), and sometimes it sparks conversation.
@TRiG Okay, I've read anecdotes 1-25. The major themes I can identify are...hmm...actually, the one thing that runs through pretty much every single story is a person noticing that there is a flaw in logic somewhere and exploring that takes them from believing to non-believing.
@El'endiaStarman Do remember that this is a self-selecting group. It's (a) people who read Greta's blog (especially the first few answers are likely to come from regular readers: others may arrive from referals later), and (b) people who are interested in answering that sort of question.
So it's interesting reading, but I'd be wary of relying on it too much, or thinking it might mean more than it does.
@TRiG Well, the way I put it applies to broader situations. In fact, one of my best friends - who is very much a Christian - has said something similar, which was that before you can convince someone of an idea that goes against their previously-held beliefs, they must first realize that there is a flaw in their own belief. That opens the gate and then you have a chance with convincing them.
@El'endiaStarman Apparently the Left Behind books have a bunch of testimonials from converts, but as has been pointed out in Slacktivist comments, evangelical Christians are a converting bunch. When they say they "converted" what they really mean is that they started paying more attention to their religion than they previously were.
@Alypius Please, please, please don't worry about search engine optimization! Our job is to ask good questions and write great answers. Ask.Yahoo doesn't stand a chance. ;-)
@El'endiaStarman Should I do a self-answer on the JW beliefs about Jesus being a god?
(It would be yet another chance for me to pull out my mantra about words having different meanings in different contexts. How many times have I said that on this site?)
@fredsbend title needs paired down (it's really really long), and it's not making use of the question body. Use the Body to frame your question, not just restate the title. Why do you want to know what you're asking? Why is it important? etc
@waxeagle I think many people skeptical of Christians and organized religion naturally question why a group of people think they have the right to decide what is from god and what it not.
@fredsbend I didn't much care for the change, but I tried to enact what you and @Alypius seemed to be agreeing on. I agree with @Caleb's comment on the question:
That sounds better, but a LOT happened and changed in 270 years. It's not easy to generalize as that took the church through several different eras. I would suggest being even more specific. Changes were gradual, not radical shifts but the system of leadership was gradually expanded on layer by layer, then started to diverge as different sects saw their roles in different lights. — Caleb22 hours ago
I also think the Catholicism angle was more interesting.
@JonEricson So you (and the community) would be ok with a narrower answer possible question of the same type? I want to know what non-christians said about christians as an organization in that time period. Less of a time period (eg 30 - 150) good?
I just had the idea that a series of questions like this should exist on the site, i think: What was mainstream christianity like from 0 to 100? Then another saying from 100 to 200. Can't really do it for some centuries because too much going on.
@JonEricson What do you mean catholicism angle? I just didn't want a biblical answer and the RCC answer is, so I didn't want that.
@fredsbend I think the best would be to go back in the direction of the original question: "How is it that the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the original denomination if there were divisions in the second century?"
I can think of small independent religious groups today --- less than 100 people --- as well as small break away groups from larger modern religions. Universally, everybody that comes across them has a different comment. Even if you asked a question like that about a group today, I think it might be too broad. What everybody else said about anybody is broad to start with, then you ask for it 2k years ago?
@fredsbend To put it another way, your original question was about the Catholic church. You might have gotten your answer in here, but you can't be the only person to wonder about it.
to quote the FAQ: "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face" that's got a lot of leniency here, but when you ask a question, ask yourself "what problem am I trying to solve here, and why is this interesting to me?"
@waxeagle The history of Christianity is explicitly allowed. Since most secular scholars highly question the historicity of the bible I wanted to excluded that from the answers. I think the question was practical, admittedly more so after the edit, and quite answerable, but not necessarily something I 'face,' but more just interested.
@fredsbend there should be some attempt to provide relevance to a question. Otherwise you have a question with no real framing. What information do you want beyond "yes" or "no"?
@fredsbend re-reading it. I'm ok with it as it stands, though I still think it lacks a bit of "why is this important" to it.
Obviously church history is on topic (and will be). But the "why are you asking" part is still missing to me. What's the relevance to today. What makes this interesting beyond satisfying one's curiosity? Why should I be interested in spending the hours to research this topic to answer it?
@waxeagle It is definitely interesting to people who don't buy the RCC story of the Church's origins. It is interesting to people who want to know if ancient christians worshiped the same as themselves: in a building only one day a week, etc.
Here's the thing. You're not putting the reasons it's interesting into the question itself. You're telling me why, but when you ask the question, why not work those thing in (not as a simple tack-on, but as part of the actual question). Don't assume everyone is on the same wavelength as to why a question might be interesting.
@fredsbend I negged it because it confused me, especially before the edit. Are you under the impression that the councils would have been? do you see the ap. as a problem that needed councils to address? If you spell those things out, then people can help more. The current answer just says "well... no" and gives the real reasons, without addressing why you might have thought that - but that's the best it can do with the info you had given. Neg removed now, though.
@JonEricson don't worry, I'm not doing nit-picky SEO. I'm just trying to ask important questions at the, uh, "lower" end of the spectrum. There might be a bit of a bias among us for dealing with mid-high range theological stuff
@JonEricson That question is problematic. The RC doesn't claim to be a "denomination". It (like any other church laying claim to the keys of St. Peter) claims to be the institution that was instituted by God, Jesus. It wasn't "denominated" later at a council, the councils were more like consolidations of what was already in place - one might try to compare it to moving out of beta. And it had been put in place by Jesus Himself.
@Alypius I would seriously suggest taking a self-answered question approach instead of trying to ask "lower" end question or simplify language somehow.
@Alypius It might be problematic, but at least it's honest! We don't expect our questions to be without fault any more than we expect our askers to be. ;-)
@JonEricson Yep, I'm familiar with those (incidentally, the one I asked in that form is the most useless question out of all those I've asked, according to votes christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/14282/… )
Sure there are some false assumptions embedded in the question. But who cares? It means that we can write really great answers. I think you are grappling with the wrong end of the bull.
@Alypius Good questions are hard to write when you are already sure of the answer. ;-) Without reading, I suspect the question has too much answer in it.
@El'endiaStarman The horns. You don't want to deal with the crap that comes out the other end. (No offense, I hope. ;)
@JonEricson I disagree, though of course I'm still trying to develop my reasons in a clear way. I guess one way to explain it is, what if I ask a question like "what made @JonEricson not believe in God?"
I mean, great... I have some wrong presuppositions that need correcting. But meanwhile, people are reading my presuppositions and possibly accepting them.
@Alypius Let's take a better example: Why didn't C. S. Lewis become a Christian? He never received baptism from a Catholic priest, so he must not be part of the church.
(Actually, I think any Catholic can baptize, but the point is, the question is "offensive" to me as a fan of Lewis' work.)
@JonEricson Sounds fine at first. The misconception is the subject of the entire question. But then think about the sort of answers you're going to get from that question, if Catholics believed that you could only be a "Christian" if you were part of the RCC?
@Alypius If I were Catholic, I'd be pretty tweaked by such an answer. Just as I was tweaked with I first heard that Einstein was an atheist. But you have to hear the bitter truth sometime.
@JonEricson but there you're talking about the bitter Truth, while with Einstein, it's just a truth.
@El'endiaStarman oh sure, I'm just saying, maybe avoid asking double questions. The last time I saw someone do that, it was actually the exact same question, twice.
@Alypius Yes, it'll be effectively the same question, but I'll be asking one from a Catholic viewpoint and one from a Protestant viewpoint. The actual text will also be slightly different.
@JonEricson Because a Catholic parent seeking to get their child baptized (or something) is going to ask a much better question than copy pasting the prior question
@El'endiaStarman for example, instead of asking two questions, it might be better for you to ask "how does Catholic baptism rules differ from Protestant rules?"
@JonEricson Oh no sure, I mean, it's just for the sake of a better question. I strongly suspect that just pasting the same question many times with slightly altered wording for Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Calvinists... might be a bad idea
I trust @El'endiaStarman to write two versions of the question that are not boring or contrived. Because he really wants to know the answer. Does that make sense?
@JonEricson I'm sure he does. I'm just suggesting that perhaps he wants to know about the difference between the two more than he wants to know about each individually.
are there actually questions like that on this site? Where they were asked of several denominations in a short span of time by the same person?
@Alypius Yes, but in books and essays I read, once they start talking about Jesus or the 12 disciples they tend to shift their focus noticeably. Quickly adding little items at the end of a paragraph like "... so was thought by so and so." I find that some would rather sell a book then admit that 1st century Christians thought Jesus to be God.
This type of question can be problematic for several reasons.
If no one is here to defend the viewpoint in question, we could easily degenerate to arguing against a straw man.
If the viewpoint in question does have an ardent defender, the question could lead to debate and argument.
In general, ...
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