Christians: what do you think of these statements?

Question

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

These are the words of John Shelby Spong (born 16 June 1931 in Charlotte, North Carolina) is the retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark (based in Newark, New Jersey). He is a liberal theologian.

http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/jsspong/reform.html

Why do christians attack me personally on these words? these are not my words as stated. could it be *gasp* THEY DON'T READ THE ENTIRE QUESTION? How many of you got beyond the first five items? huh?

Answer 1

how can they (my fellow answerers here) ever escape? They are the enchained and not prepared to question anything. It is a real shame.

to put it simply, these statements are all fact (especially number five - my favourite). People who dispute this have done no research. People who dispute this have an agenda (and will try to reflect that upon those who agree with the statements). They are so convinced that the shadows on the wall is all there is to the universe they can't understand where the heat on their backs comes from. You know what I'm talking about.

My favourite is number five because of how many people dispute it, and yet things like LEDs, LASERs and even ordinary light bulbs perform 'miracles' when they operate. By that, I mean they breach the normal classical laws of physics. Quantum tunnelling is required for the operation of LEDs, and quantum field theory is required for the operation of LASERs and ordinary light bulbs. All of these phenomena are impossible by classical physics and, therefore, are miracles. There is a finite possibility for absolutely any event you care to imagine. Whilst this possibility is small, it is still significant because it removes the requirement for a transcendent intellegent being. It removed the need for God.

And yet, the enchained will argue that these things are by the will of God, and that God has a plan etc etc. How can they see the truth when they are content with the illusion? As you know, they are not ready to see what you are trying to show them. I have learned that the hard way.

Answer 2

Mr. acid_zebr... nonprophet..., I have noticed your presence and overconfidence on these forums and I think everyone should be entitled to their beliefs but as a Soldier of Christ I will oppose you and submit my counter argument by the end of the day.
An' don't ya dare leave without it! Mawkish, I will prove you wrong as well and answer back at all 12!

Answer 3

You should be glad that I respond at all.

Why do you spend so much time on something you take no time to understand?

Look at that-- you impune and ridicule while at the same time reveal even in the first 'definition' that you haven't got the smallest understanding in critical thinking-- lacking enough sophistication to define without arbitrary response added.

What's wrong with you?

Answer 4

You can question the Bible with all you have and then try to disprove it while you are at it. It is a futile effort. People that believe in God and the Bible and that Jesus died on the cross for your salvation and mine, have something that Non believers don't have. Let me rephrase that, we have something that you have but are choosing to reject it. You can never disprove God. You will never disprove God.
You don't offend me. The mockings don't make me mad. It just makes me stronger in my belief. So, in a weird way, Thank you.

Answer 5

The bishop was entitled to his opinion. I am not a Christian, (not anymore) and I doubt any Christian regardless of denomination would agree with the comments of the Bishop.

However, I do agree with many of those things numbered there.

Answer 6

Your very existence is a great evidence on the existence of Adam and Eve, or let us say the first two human beings. You did not see Adam and Eve, but you believe that they existed.

To make it more clear: You came through your parents. Your parents came through their parents, and your grandparents came through their parents, and so on. You may continue going back until you reach Adam and Eve. If you deny the existence of the first two human beings, you would be eliminating the first generation of their children. By eliminating the first generation, you eliminate the second and what is beyond it. Finally, you have to eliminate your own parents. Then you have to eliminate yourself. But you say to yourself: I cannot do that because I am here. Then you have to say: Adam and Eve were there.

Answer 7

Lot of effort went into this.
I say they are false.
And so does the Creator of the world, the Savior of the World, and the Comforter of the World.
And finally... drumroll please....
Prove it.

Answer 8

My only question is, John Shelby Spong what shampoo does he use?

Additionally, there were non-Christians and atheists in a pre-Newton pre-Darwin time period.

I do find these definitions to be a basis for yahoo answers non-theists.

Answer 9

Ideas like his are one reason I left the Episcopal church and converted to Roman Catholicism.

It's also why the Episcopal church is quickly disintegrating, with a great number of its congregations choosing to align themselves with the Anglican Communion.

so what's for dinner?

Answer 10

I think they must be the words of a liberal theologian, one who has forsaken the simplicity and power of the word of God, one who has no relationship with God, and one who is leading many astray with false teaching and lies of the devil.

god bless