> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Reggie Bautista
... > Nick wrote: > >You (plural) don't believe that Jesus is fully human? > > I could be wrong since my beliefs have moved somewhat away from > mainstream > Catholic thought, but I believe the official Catholic party line is that > Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, That's fairly typical across Christianity, I think. > It's just a matter of semantics. The way I see it, Catholics are > a subset > of Christians. However, many fundamentalist Christians say that > Catholics > aren't really Christian at all. Which really seems wrong to me. I wonder how many have a clue about why there is a distinction, or as somebody said earlier in this thread, how many know the history of the church. > To further muddy matters, some Catholics > use the term "Christian" as short-hand for "Fundamentalist Christian." Yeah, I almost thought this thread was going that way. > The primary differences between Catholics and > Fundamentalists, > as I see it, are what one believes about whether the Bible is to be > interpreted literally, and whether the Bible is the only viable > source for > spiritual info. Well, "solo scriptorum" was certainly a theme of the early Protestants, but I think you do today's fundamentalist Christians too much of a favor by using their language about taking the Bible literally. Saying that you're taking it literally answers nothing; fundamentalism, in my view, is being in denial about interpretation! I have no doubt that fundamentalists are interpreting; the difference is that they believe their interpretation is the only correct one, now and forever (amen). ... > >Apparently, there is less survival value to a population in sharing > >positive > >information...? > > Perhaps it's because often, positive info is nice to know but > negative info > is critical. For example, I can think of a lot of plants that are > absolutely deadly to humans, but I can't think of a single one that every > human has to eat in order to live. Maybe the positive > information is more > permissive (it's ok to eat this and this and this, but you don't > necessarily > have to eat all of those things) and therefore less critical than > "don't eat > that because it will kill you." Just a thought. Which means that we live in a world that is essentially dangerous. If we lived in an essentially safe environment, we'd probably do a lot more positive communication. I find myself thinking this is at the core of a number of beliefs about living in a fallen world, original sin, etc. This universe doesn't seem to welcome us! Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
