1:56 AM
1 hour later…
3:08 AM
In contrast to trinitarian, there's Unitarian, modalism, arianism, etc. Non-trinitarian is a meta tag, almost.
4 hours later…
7:22 AM
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12:27 PM
@curiousdannii The major non-Trinitarian groups are wildly disparate in theology, aren't they? The ones I can think of are Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons (LDS et al.), and Oneness Pentecostalism. Mormons and JWs have some similarities in terms of how the religious structures control their members, but very very different doctrines. Oneness I know little about.
12:58 PM
@TRiG Yeah, the only time I think a non-trinitarian tag could be useful is for questions about arguments against the Trinity. I think there might be enough common ground for it to be useful enough. But I could see an argument that Peter's right and it's just not that useful. Someone should do an audit of the tag.... not that I'm volunteering haha.
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2:13 PM
6
In 1872 George Smith translated the famous Flood Tablet (tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh), causing a sensation due to its striking similarity to the story of Noah's Ark in the Book of Genesis. Indeed, in his A History of the World in 100 Objects, Neil MacGreg...
4 hours later…
6:28 PM
@GratefulDisciple A few thoughts. First, I think blaming extreme literalism is a bit of a strawman. Clearly, much of the Bible is not a literal message. Which leads to the second point. Clearly much of the Bible is not meant for deriving theology. And, naturally, that follows into a few issues with believing the theology of some passages is inspired.
It's more appropriate to say any theology, as the vast array of them proves the lengths that rationality can go to produce high intellectualisms from sometimes very plain passages.
There's probably less than 5 basic theological points that belong to all Christians, and they are very generic.
Outside of a magisterium or tradition, inspiration must come regularly to the individual, leading us into "God feeling real". It can be approached that the passages are the authors' instances of inspiration rather than generic inspiration for all, but that makes them mere tools to bring about your own instances. Without sensations that inspiration occurs for you personally, this falls apart. The Bible becomes a tool that doesn't work.
And further, if the Bible was intended to put out "propositional truths", one must question how effective it has been at doing that. The Almighty God, Holy and righteous, managed that as the best tool to express these truths to us?
It's excessively large, jumbled about, covers numerous possibly irrelevant stories of an ancient people, and clearly produces little to no unity. It does not successfully square away any truths that we couldn't arrive at without it.
And again, without a generic or personal inspiration, the question becomes "What is my religion?" The inevitable answer is "nothing, it has no substance".
@GratefulDisciple God demonstrates indifference in the book of Job. He "won't be dragged into it" you say, but he doesn't have a choice. The problem exists because he exists. There's only a problem of evil within a framework that includes a god like the Christian God.
@GratefulDisciple The wages of sin is death. Any way you look at it, sin requires death. Your particular approach struggles by conflating "types" of death. Jesus literally died. But we figuratively "die to self"? I wonder how you change death's definition regarding biology, afterlife, and resurrection.
3 hours later…
10:03 PM
@GratefulDisciple That sounds nice, but doesn't sound particularly Christian. Many scriptures portray God as personally interested in you specifically. Passages such as "stitched together in my mother's womb", "knows the number of hairs upon my head", "will call you by your name", and of course Adam walking with God in the evening, and Enoch and Elijah sui close that God spared them from physical death.
Your depiction is more in line with the passages of "living sacrifice", "do all for God's glory", and "marvel at the heavens". It's worship, by definition, but not particularly personal.
I'm not very familiar with Piper's Christian Hedonism, but to me, you seem to be verging even into pantheism. God is in all things, and joy can be discovered in them.
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The Upper Room
General discussion for Christianity.SE, pseudo-meta support, a...