Firechyld, perhaps you can give Lighthouse a couple of examples of where his convictions come solely from the church and not from Biblical texts. One would hope you have some examples in mind, else we would be forced to conclude that you are a hypocrite for chastising Lighthouse for being "uniformed" when the basis for your claims are equally uniformed. Now we should not jump to the conclusion that you are a hypocrite, so I am asking you if you would please substantiate your statement or retract it.
Surely you have a basis for these statements and they are not based on "uniformed" assumptions, right?
Sure. The example that jumps to mind immediately is the stand taken against abortion by some Christian groups. It can be traced to two specific extra-biblical texts that became church teaching... but are not Biblical.
I can get specifically into fundamentalism and Christian post-modernism, but I'd really rather not.
Before I go on, I should point out that I don't consider the fact that some of lighthouse's (or anyone else's) beliefs are based on church teaching and not taken directly from Scripture to be a bad thing. Quite the opposite. I've pointed out repeatedly that I think the ability to evolve is something I consider beneficial to a religious structure. Judaism is a great example... not all Judaic beliefs are taken directly from the Tanekh, but this is not a negative thing. I am NOT trying to claim that lighthouse's beliefs are wrong or false because of their origins.
The only fault I see in lighthouse in this area is his insistance that his beliefs are
not based on extra-biblical writings and church doctrine. I have no objection to him holding these beliefs... only to his lack of knowledge about their origins, and his claims to the contrary.
Again, I think your next post really ought to put some analysis behind your accusations. The definition of hypocrisy is, as you know, pointing to a flaw in another when you have the selfsame flaw. If you are going to take Lighthouse to task for being "uneducated" about his beliefs, I would hope you would be able to articulate what Lighthouse believes and how he is misinformed using your own educated understanding of Lighthouses religion. This would show us that you made your claims with an “educated� understanding and not from an “uneducated� judgment, either about what Lighthouse believes or about the religion you think he does not understand.
So can you please, provide Lighthouse with some of these examples?
I was perhaps a little unclear about what I meant in this section of my post. I was not implying that lighthouse's
beliefs were in any way wrong. When I said:
You're woefully uneducated on the matter of your own religion
... I was referring to history, to the socio-political climate surrounding the authoring of each text that makes up his Bible, and the history of the church and Christianity in general.
Another example... there was a discussion about the authorship of the gospels, and their role as war time writings. Lighthouse lept into the discussion all hyped up to insist the they were actually written by the people whose names are ascribed to them.
Now, again, I have no trouble with him believing that... although, since it's a historical question, I'd expect him to have some sort of evidence backing his position. But lighthouse had never even encountered the question before. He had never attempted to research the authorship of the gospels, or the study that has been done into that question. He simply accepted what he had been told... that they were written by those specific people. My problem is that he was prepared to argue this uninformed position, with nothing backing him up. Much as he does here.
Now, since I've had many discussions with lighthouse that deal with these topics, I'd really prefer not to get into yet another point-for-point argument with him over issues that are already being discussed elsewhere. I also don't wish to hijack this thread. I hope that my explanation of my position makes the point-for-point unnecessary.
Lighthouse, as I've said many times before, I have no issue with you believing what you believe. I simply wish you'd research more before arguing topics that come down to factual evidence and history. Those debates cannot be won by arguing belief alone.