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Firelad
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Haifa, Israel.
May 2002
time: 07:29
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All the long ones.You know, Nicene Apostolic and Episcopalian. Also, what exactly do you mean when you say "creed" in this instance?
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:29
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Glad you asked.
Creed simply refers to a declaration of faith, in this instance as to what Christians believe.
Episcopalian:
When the Americans revolted from the British Empire, they couldn't very well keep the Queen as the Defender of the faith, now could they? All the Anglicans in the US became the Episcopalians, retaining the same traditions, but without the Queen as the head of the church. They are currently part of the worldwide Anglican communion, though they may leave soon.
Nicene Creed:
First declared during the Council of Nicaea as a declaration of faith or creed expressing what Christians believe, later revised and affirmed in A.D. 381, at Constantinople.
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Apostolic creed:
The current form is first found in the writings of Caesarius of Arles (d 542), this creed was apparently used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.
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Proteus_MST
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Now, as lutheran Protestant I have come to learn the Apostolic creed (but with "the holy christian Church" instead of "the holy catholic church"  and having "Descended into the realm of the Dead ones" instead of "Descended into Hell" )
I don´t see any problems with it.
It just sums up how Jesus is seen in the christian (and catholic  ) church and what role he (according to this belief) will take in the Armageddon (as written in the Revelations).
After all, there are worse things which should be attacked than those creeds (like Creationists still fighting against teaching Evolution in schools).
I for my part can live with those words, I mean, after all there is not so much which interferes with todays Science.
God as maker of Heaven and Earth? Disputable, but at least the creed doesn´t contain, that he did it 6000 years ago and within 6 days made Earth and everything which lives on it, so it is much more believable that he maybe was involved in the Big Bang and therefore can be considered maker of heaven and earth (whereas all the steps which led to the evolution of the Universe and Mankind involved the Laws of Nature).
Jesus born from a virgin which conceived him from the Holy Spirit? Yes, thats could be ommitted, but after all I see this sentence to be harmlesss.
Jesus being 3 days dead and then being alive again?
I can´t speak against it, as the thing with people having a soul and someday experiencing some kind of afterlife ist an important part of the christian belief. It is difficult to prove or disprove, and I think, if you believe in some kind of God it is just part of it
And last this thing with the Armageddon and Christ being some kind of judge
Revelation of Johannes
Now, as the worlds has not yet come to an end everything is possible, and Christ being the judge foor the Dead? I can imagine worse
So I don´t think, that these creeds should be altered (at least not the Version of the apostolic creed I learned).
But as Sponge speaks of "literally". I think this is the main Problem which creates fundamentalism. You shoudln´t alter the creeds, but you should teach children (and also many adults), not to take the whole Bible and the words in it literally.
And of course you should teach children all of the facts surrounding the Bible.
For example Jack Chick (the one with the Comics) and many other religious groups believe, that only Bibles which are direct Translations of the "Textus rezeptus" contain the whole words of god, and every other version of the Bible contains delusions of Satanas. But those who propagate this forget to mention, that Erasmus of Rotterdam published 4 Versions of the Textus Rezeptus and each Version differs in many Passages from the other Ones. And they also forget to mention, that Erasmus makes some inmterpretations, which aren´t covered by the greek Originals (for example he substituted one time "Tree of Life" with "Book of Life", because he only had a handwritten Copy in Latin from a few passages and didn´t have enough time to gather other manuscripts to check this passage (as to this time it was a race between Erasmus and a spanish Publisher to print the first Version of the Bible [a race which Erasmus had won in the End, despite his work seemed to be qualitatively inferior]).
If you know this, it is much easier to question some fundamentalist beliefs.
So I think, if Pupils are taught the historical facts surrounding the Creation of the Bible it is much easier for them to avoid fundamentalism (and it is much more effective than rewriting the Creeds )
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The diplomat
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Terre Haute, IN USA
Sep 1999
time: 23:29
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quote:
Originally posted by obiwan18
"The way reality was perceived when the Christian creeds were formuated has been obliterated by the expansion of knowledge." |
This statement is completely false. Science explains how the world works. that is it. It does not prove or disprove the existence of God. So, just because we know more about how the world works, does not mean that God is not behind it all.
What Spong is doing is very bad for Christianity. He is undermining the Christian faith. After all, if a Christian is not going to believe the fundamental tenets of the faith, then how can they call themselves Christian? After all, by definition, a Christian is someone who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, fully God and fully Man, born of the virgin Mary, was crucified, and rose from the dead on the 3rd day.
Last edited by The diplomat on 26-07-2003 at 20:52
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Jon Miller
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my faith says nothing about the credes (I didn't even know about them until one of my freinds talked about them in college)
however, they seem mostly to represent the key points of christianity (there are a few bones to pick, but mostly)
Jon Miller
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by obiwan18
So what do you think? Is Spong's statement so blindingly obvious or are there certain issues Spong has glossed over? |
A bit of both.
You have to be (a) in denial, and (b) have an agenda to create a dogmatic alternative and look for "evidence" of any sort (no matter how dodgy) to support your point of view, to deny the overwhelming evidence for evolution, modern physics theories and cosmology.
On the flip side, if any of the Genesis authors had tried to explain DNA, electromagnetic forces, singularities, etc. to a ca 1200 b.c. audience, it wouldn't have gone over real well.
A strict literal interpretation of the Bible is impossible to support outside of absolute faith, and disregard for physical evidence in many respects. The question is how far does Spong want to go in revising anything, as opposed to simply acknowledging that certain explanatory passages (i.e. Genesis creation) were simply allegories presented at a level of understanding of the people to whom they were directed at the time of writing.
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Jon Miller
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science and religion are in two different spheres
the only time religion gets in trouble is when it tries to explain stuff in the realm of science
conversely, when science is misused is when it tries to explain stuff in the realm of religion
Jon miller
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by PLATO1003
Mtg...I was unaware of any evidence of one species evolving into another species. Evolution within a species is a proven fact. But evolution from one species to another is just a theory without any hard evidence to support AFAIK.
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The difference between "within a species" and "between species" is subjective, since taxonomy at the finest levels of granularity is fairly subjective. i.e. how is a Chihuahua and a Siberian husky the same species, but an Australian dingo is not, and a wolf is a different genus, yet they can interbreed successfully, at least if you get past the snarling and gnashing of teeth.
Evolution of a different species has been (as a result of an initial accident) duplicated and verified in a lab. In this case, the species was a type of amoeba, and the criteria for whether two amoeba are the same species or different is whether you can microsurgically transplant the nucleus from each one to the other. Since amoeba reproduce mitotically, barring mutation, they are genetic copies of each other within the same species, so neucleus transplantation doesn't affect them within the same species.
In this particular instance, a team of microbiologists was preparing for an unrelated experiment, and had a large number of petri dishes with millions of amoeba, and somehow, a small microbial parasite got in and infected the whole batch, killing most of them, and rendering them all useless for the intended experiment. Since a few months work was down the tubes, one of the microbiologists decided to study the infected amoeba and try to determine why some lived and reproduced successfully, while most died, in a population that was genetically identical. When the infected amoeba reproduced, the infectious organism appeared in both offspring, and over time, it killed less and less of them.
Over time, the parasites developed a symbiotic relationship with the new amoeba, such that if you removed the parasites from the new amoeba, it died, while if you introduced the parasites to the original amoeba, they died. Nuclear transplants showed that as a result of interaction with the parasites, the survivors of the original infection had become a new species, by the exchange of nuclear material with the parasites. So transplants between new amoeba worked fine, transplants between old unexposed amoeba worked fine, and transplants between the two were immediately fatal to both.
This is not the same as genetic engineering at all, since the only thing done was to isolate and care for the most robust of the original infection survivors, and to monitor them closely. The process of establishing symbiotic relationships with invading parasites is also the leading model of how eukaryotic cells were formed, and explains why our cells' mitochondria have their own completely distinct DNA sequences.
quote:
Could you also give me an example of what physical evidence incontovertably disputes biblical text? |
Unless you get into metaphorical interpretations, the physcial side of the Genesis creation story is demonstrably false. We have enough evidence of stellar and planetary formation (observed protoplanetary disks, observed protostars), to confirm the basic model of stellar evolution and planet formation. I.e. the star forms first, then a protoplanetary disk, then planets. So the light preceded the earth, not to mention that there were already stars well before our solar system was formed. (Otherwise, if this was a first generation star, we wouldn't have any elements heavier than iron, since fusion of heavier elements takes more energy than it releases, and requires much higher pressures than occur within our sun or any main sequence star).
We can also demonstrate isotopically that the moon came from the earth, so it could not have been created at the same time as the sun.
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:29
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quote:
God as maker of Heaven and Earth? Disputable, but at least the creed doesn´t contain, that he did it 6000 years ago and within 6 days made Earth and everything which lives on it, so it is much more believable that he maybe was involved in the Big Bang and therefore can be considered maker of heaven and earth (whereas all the steps which led to the evolution of the Universe and Mankind involved the Laws of Nature). |
In Genesis, "Heaven" and "Earth" are defined, not as the universe or this planet, but as a "firmament" used to separate the waters into the waters above (still ambiguous - metaphor?) and the waters below (the waters used to form the "seas"), and the soil. Genesis has been hijacked by the (willfully) ignorant and deceitful to turn God into an all-powerful, all-knowing prime mover and the overwhelming evidence to the contrary has been ignored or perverted. Anyone can read the first page of Genesis and see the following:
1) Heaven and Earth are references to our little corner of the universe.
2) Earth existed before God's "creation" of the Heaven.
3) Heaven is some kind of barrier or demarcation line separating the waters.
4) The waters, like the Earth, preceded Heaven and God's introduction into the story.
5) The Earth was "created" when God drew the waters below the Heaven together to form the Seas and the "dry land" - the actual definition of "Earth" - was revealed.
6) When these points are considered, Genesis is in agreement with virtually all of the world's creation "myths".
7) When these points are ignored or subverted to make God more than God is, we end up with science and religion in conflict when they actually compliment each other.
8) We have to take the word "create(d)" with a grain of salt since we're told God created the Earth when God merely allowed the Earth - "dry land" - to appear by gathering together the waters below the firmament ("Heaven").
9) No where in Genesis or the OT will we find the claim that God created or made the waters, only references to God creating the "Seas", and we already know God did not create the Seas, just formed them by gathering together the waters.
10) A common metaphor for the planets, especially among the Greeks, was "waters" - celestial waters - since the planets "flowed" thru the sky. Genesis fails to mention the planets per se. Was this because other cultures associated the planets with "Gods" and a monotheistic culture wanted to downplay the planets for this reason? Was this why Genesis makes no mention of other planets but refers to the "waters" above?
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:29
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mtg:
i think the creationist's problem is that very apparent physical evolution has not been proven (nor can it be if you don't accept fossil evidence [which many creationists don't accept] except through watching animals change over millions of years)... scientists say the dolphin evolved from a shore living dog-like creature... it's such dramatic evolution like this that creationists don't believe happened.
but yeah the whole taxonomy is subjective but dramatic gene changes needed to have happened to change a land animal into a dolphin
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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Albert - the biggest problem in that comprehension, IMO, is really getting a handle on the numbers. If you look at a process that's occurred over 50 million years and 25 million generations of animal, the numbers are staggering.
With humans, if you go back to the beginnings of civilization, when we first started doing agriculture, etc., that's a few hundred generations. And more than half that time has no written history, it's all archaelogical. Our total range of "human" experience isn't even 1/1,000, or in many cases, 1/10,000 of the generational time frame for significant evolutionary changes, so yeah, it's hard to get a grasp of the process.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:29
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MtG:
yeah so dramatic, 'macro'- evolution as it is called is impossible to prove without a doubt though evolution on a smaller scale (like with those amoeba) has been proved, can be seen, and is completely logical. it's that doubt of dramatic evolution that is what creationists cling on and the scientific camp can not say much to prove.
in any event, what always bothered me is how the creationist vs evolutionist debate is always two sided... what about the obvious middle ground that is something most people can agree on? either divinely guided evolution or the Deist idea of god making scientific laws like evolution and allowing organisms to exist and change within these laws... everytime i see a debate here or hear about the issue of creationism and evolution, all i can ever think is, "Divinely guided evolution people! it's the ****ing perfect solution!"
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:29
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Black Dragon:
quote:
Spong is a heretic. The Nicean and Apostolic creeds are absolutely true, part of the continuing of God's revelation through Christian Tradition. God's Holy Spirit has remained with the Church and would have protected us from an errant Church. Not only that, they are also both in line with Holy Scripture. |
everytime you talk about something religious, you scare me...
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26-07-2003 12:59
while other fundies claim they were human just like us.
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