Was Jesus really God?

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14 Nov 2023, 2:28 pm

Can anybody remember that branch of the Christian Church that's very relaxed about the belief thing, and is happy for the individual to interpret it in more or less any way they feel is right for them? I know they exist in the USA, even in the South, but I've forgotten their name. Asking because it's likely to be the best fit of the lot for me, as I'm hopeless with faith but rather like a lot of the ideology associated with Jesus. The Church of England comes close, and last time I looked the spiritualists allowed free interpretation of their credo but as I think their communication with the dead is false, I don't think we'd like each other.

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14 Nov 2023, 2:31 pm

Unitarian Universalist?

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14 Nov 2023, 5:03 pm

TwilightPrincess wrote:

Unitarian Universalist?

Ah, Unitarian sounds familiar, and now I've checked, it seems that the Universalist wing is closer to what I had in mind than plain Unitarian. Atheists are welcome - can't get much more inclusive than that. I see they have something about "salvation" in their doctrines, which doesn't suit me as I don't consider myself to be lost, but I don't suppose they push the matter.

Hmm.....UU Fellowship of Mountain Home AR is quite nearby, though not near enough for visiting it regularly. Next time I'm in the area I might take a look. Thanks :-)

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14 Nov 2023, 5:36 pm

Sure thing.

I’d like to check out a variety of churches sometime, not because I believe but because I find it interesting.

A UU church might be a good place to meet new people.

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14 Nov 2023, 6:27 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

The Church of England comes close, and last time I looked the spiritualists allowed free interpretation of their credo but as I think their communication with the dead is false, I don't think we'd like each other.

Episcopalian?

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14 Nov 2023, 6:48 pm

Honey69 wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

Episcopalian?

I presume you mean the Church of England, not the spiritualists or me. Unfortunately I don't know what Episcopalian means. When I go, I just go for the architecture, the singing, and the atmos.

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14 Nov 2023, 6:59 pm

TwilightPrincess wrote:

Sure thing.
A UU church might be a good place to meet new people.

Yes it's possible. Presumably they're a mixed bag, which means I won't seem so odd. If it does what it says on the tin, they might understand the value of being inclusive and laid back. Not that it's likely to become a regular thing, but it'll be a new experience, and you never know.

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14 Nov 2023, 7:00 pm

Maybe try the Quakers?

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14 Nov 2023, 7:24 pm

Honey69 wrote:

Maybe try the Quakers?

I probably would if I got over my bad experience with them. I went there to meet somebody, lost my way, asked somebody who seemed like part of their core group, and he was cold and unhelpful. Still, I suppose if you've met one Quaker, you've met one Quaker, so I should get over it.

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14 Nov 2023, 7:33 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

TwilightPrincess wrote:

Sure thing.
A UU church might be a good place to meet new people.

I belong to the Church of England / Anglican. Maybe I won the church lottery but despite the fact my church is very old-money and appears conservative, it's very liberal-minded. We had a woman rector (priest / minister) for many years and the Bishop of the parish was also a woman. We've always promoted equality, love, peace, etc., and done gay weddings. The man who replaced the rector is gay and he's been married to his partner for almost 30 years now. They both minister in corrections facilities and mental health services too. It's not meant to be a political statement or anything, it's just that the overriding message is always about loving others without judgment.

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14 Nov 2023, 9:18 pm

^ Yes C of E has moved with the times a bit. It was quite a culture shock coming to Arkansas from England and discovering to my horror just how fundamentalist a lot of the locals are. My father-in-law is convinced that homosexuality is an abomination, and my brother-in-law's opposition to that is confined to "hate the sin, love the sinner." :roll:

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14 Nov 2023, 9:23 pm

I knew you were in America now but I didn't realise it was Arkansas.
That must have been a huge culture shock all around.

Too bad you can't meet up with Misslizard for a few laughs.
Her dogs might have a word or two for your inlaws.

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15 Nov 2023, 12:43 pm

^
Fundie-eating dogs sounds like a great idea. :twisted: Luckily for the locals and for me, we've just moved to Mountain View where rumour has it that non-fundie natives actually exist. I might find some if I ever pluck up the courage to talk about religion and politics here.

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15 Nov 2023, 6:51 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

MatchboxVagabond wrote:

Personally, I don't buy into it, but wasn't it mostly Catholics that buy that Trinity BS.

No, it was established at the First Council of Nicaea and is today accepted by Protestant, Orthodox, and Church of the East Christians alike. Non-trinitarian Christians are oddballs like Oneness Pentecostals, LDS, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Fair point, although it doesn't make the position any less stupid. There are a bunch of other things those folks believed back then, and it's rather challenging to remove things once it's being pushed by the Church.

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15 Nov 2023, 6:58 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

MatchboxVagabond wrote:

If you start asking questions, the whole thing kind of falls apart.

It makes zero sense for Jesus to also be his own dad because how is he then sacrificing his only son for our sins? That's him offing himself to save us from his own punishment for the original sin.

Personally, I don't buy into it, but wasn't it mostly Catholics that buy that Trinity BS. I'm not completely convinced that Catholics are still Christians because of things like that and completely made up stuff like purgatory. If they are, they're terrible biblical scholars.

I can't really say that I care either way, the whole thing is a mess.

Indeed, I've yet to see any Christian apologetics that aren't muddled and ultimately unconvincing to my mind. This one is the best I've found - it starts off very well but I think it eventually degenerates into propaganda tricks, though I plan to study it in more depth:

https://answersingenesis.org/is-the-bib ... e-is-true/

One of the main problems with traditional Christianity for me is their notion of scapegoating as a good thing. The idea of taking an innocent life-form and "sacrificing" it in order to appease a capricious, powerful deity may have been acceptable to the ancients, but I can't seem to abandon my conviction that it's an appalling thing to do. Saying "But Jesus came back to life again" doesn't really mitigate the agony of crucifixion, and even the scapegoating is the wrong way round - a deity being unable to forgive mortals until the deity has sacrificed himself in the form of his own son, seems downright bizarre to me. It would make a bit more sense if it was God who needed to atone for his own mistakes so that we could forgive him, but even then, couldn't he have just apologised?

I always assumed that was a bit like all the rules for women in Islam, or the grafting of Buddhism onto Taoism that eventually gave us Zen to be more acceptable to the Chinese. Accommodations to the locals you're trying to convert are pretty much inevitable if you want to get it adopted. I doubt much of the bits of Islam involving things like hijabs and the like would have been there if there wasn't already an Arabic mistrust of women. (See the 1001 Arabian Nights for a sense of that)

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15 Nov 2023, 7:02 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

Some Lutheran Synods largely leave matters between the believer and God without a lot of Church in the middle. I know the ELCA does, I'm not sure about others. (Just definitely not Missouri or Wisconsin Synod, those are pretty hardcore)

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