Why are Christians so incredibly gullible?

I’m a Protestant myself, brother, and in case you don’t recognize it: my avatar shows one of the contracts that sealed the “Peace of Westfalia” that ended the 30 years war between Catholic and Protestant rulers that devastated the continent I live in. I’m glad to live in times in which Protestants and Catholics can engage in amicable ecumenical dialogue and work hand in hand in many ways. And having grown up in the diaspora as one of the few Protestants in a mainly Catholic area, I easily just say “the Church” when I obviously mean the Roman Catholic one. I’m sorry if that offends you. But note that Protestants were much more prone to heavily oppose heliocentric ideas than Catholics were, because they were much more bothered about the Bible. Also Protestants didn’t necessarily hesitate much when it came to burning people on the stake. So while Protestantism certainly was one of the first steps towards enlightenment, Protestants were not always enlightened. Some of us still aren’t.

 

As I put to you before:

"When Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology, and this is clearly shown in Finocchiaro's reconstruction of the accusations against Bruno (see also Blumenberg's part 3, chapter 5, titled “Not a Martyr for Copernicanism: Giordano Bruno&#8221."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/

And even if he had been burned for promoting heliocentrism, that would still not make him "lots of people", would it? So, come on, you said this was well documented. So you must be able to come up with some guys who were burned for that!

 

If you take the time to look at the list provided in WIKI it brakes down who where burned for believing in a Heliocentic Earth and those who were burned for other reasons.

These are just the known important people in history and anyone who even taught anything by Aristotle would be burned at the stake.

AboveAlpha

 

In other words: you were talking out of your arse. Which is just one of the many examples in this thread showing that being gullible is not a uniquely Christian trait.

P.S.: Concerning Aristotle you may want to search Wikipedia for Thomas Aquinas

 

Uhhh....there is a VERY long list and a link to another WIKI site specific to heretic Burning.

If you read it...it details how many people that attempted to teach what Aristotle detailed were burned as heretics.

I hardly call that talking out my ass.

AboveAlpha

 

Sorry but I do call that talking out of your arse. Don't take it too hard; but that was a massive fail just as is was a fail to think that the Catholic Church promoted the idea that the earth was flat. I'll spare you the others that I noticed with my rather meagre knowledge on Church History.

 

So you are saying that people like Bruno were not burned for believing that a round Earth was not the center of the Universe?

AboveAlpha

 

In addition what about the thousands of Midwives burned as Witches burned at the stake by the Church as the Church intended to rid society of these well trained medics specific to Child Birth?

AboveAlpha

 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says Bruno was not burned for that and even though I tried (admittedly not very hard, that would be your job) I could not find anybody who was. So if a lot of people were burned for that it seems not to be "well documented" and I'd be very surprised if you found many.

I would have put the matter to rest and accepted your non-answer to my original post as a concession, had I not found your post #838 so obnoxiously arrogant.

 

What are you going on about? Where did I say anything about literalness?

 

Well every other source say's he was burned for this.

You are quoting but one source.

Also...this is but the very first issue upon all the debates we have had upon this topic where you have come close to winning or being correct.

I would not throw around statements of me being arrogant considering your track record.

AboveAlpha

 

Yes, the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, burned a lot of people. But as I mentioned above it did not seem to have burned lots of people if any at all for believing that the earth is round and that it circles around the sun. Accuracy! To be accurate is one of the things I learned when studying Theology by the way. That was in the same seminar in which the Professor made it very clear to my 'bible-believing' fellow-students that faith is one thing, but the historical-critical method is another.

 

Since I cannot yet find a number for non-important heretic burnings I will concede this point for the moment.

Still...they did happen and the whole point of this conversation was that Christians and the Church took the Old Testament LITERALLY.

AboveAlpha

 

If you read it carefully, you'll find that not even the wikipedia entry says Bruno was burned for believing the earth is round and circles around the Sun. Again: accuracy! Have a good night, I'm tired of bashing you any further and a little ashamed to have engaged in such in the first place. But I guess now you know what it feels like when you do it to some of my fellow Christians in this thread. Even if some of them can be frustratingly unreasonable, you should not lean too much out of the window when scolding them for that, dear. The splinter in the brothers eye ... , you know.

 

Christians as early as Augustine and before did not take the Old Testament literally. Going back to Augustine the Catholic Church traditionally prefers allegorical interpretations (which by the way also explains some of its IMHO more abstruse teachings). The Catholic Church can be a slow mover, but it has embraced theistic evolution ages ago. So have most Protestant denominations.

 

You misunderstand me.

I am not bashing Christians or putting people on the spot for their religion or even their beliefs.

What I am doing is confronting people who cannot admit to themselves or others that there are things in the Old Testament that are OBVIOUS STORIES.

And again all that matters is the lessons such stories tell but for anyone to take these literally is really senseless and like walking around with a bag over ones head.

AboveAlpha

 

Us non-religious are too arrogant too often. Sorry.

 

And I respect your opinion as well. Thanks!

 

So what do they mean by "tradition"? and what do the "liberal" scholars base theirs on? For the record, I hate the terms "conservative" and "liberal" in this format because they have negative connotations, based on your viewpoint. I use them when talking to others, to get my view across, but I wish we had better terms to use.

 

See that doesn't answer, for me, the questions I'm asking. I'm looking for the nuts and bolts of the interpretation. I can read what science says, but I'm not interested in what it says, I'm interested in how to keep the integrity of scripture, while adhering to modern science.

I would, believe it or not, love to be able to reconcile modern science and scripture, because I believe it would bridge a great divide for people that can't come to scripture due to having that mind set.

 

I cannot possibly see any connection or possible interpretation that would unify Biblical Scripture to Scientific Reality.

Biblical Scripture was written by ancient man and because of this and because ancient man had not a clue to such realities as Genetics and Cosmology...any interpretation that could be developed unifying these things would be akin to a person seeing a face, duck or dog in the clouds.

Basically a person can see anything they want to see in anything.

AboveAlpha

 

Its very possible that ancient man often writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, didn't have a complete understanding of the things he was writing down.

 

That is possible.

I just took a look at the first page of Genesis and attempted to connect the literal scripture with scientific facts.

It is extremely difficult to do this.

AboveAlpha

 

I find it very difficult, that's why I'm open to someone explaining it to me, because I just don't see it.

 

I have news for you......true Christians never and don't go to war against anyone........if you study the Bible you will see that. A scripture in the Bible ask, Is Christ divided? Obviously He is not, so how could true disciples ever go to war against each other? I have never supported any kind of war against another no matter what that person or Country or group might have done or was accused of doing.

Don't tell me about what the Catholic Church has done as If I'm Catholic as is I'm responsible for what I pagan Church did.......I have never believed or observed Catholic teachings. And just as much as I'm not a Catholic I do not consider myself a protestant either.......you can't put me in anyone of those boxes. It would be nice when you say these things that you are specific not only about the group but also the place/Country these things were being done. Because there are Countries in which there are Christians where none of those things you mentioned were being done by Christians........the world is not just made up of America and Europe.