Proof texting

[atpollard]

But we (meaning us today) like to read Jesus' speech and apply the promise of another helper to ourselves. It's an important part of Christian belief to think that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us all (meaning the community). The speech is long, it starts in chapter 14 and goes to chapter 17. Very few Christians would be willing to have those chapters treated as a message for the disciples of 2,000 years ago but not for us now.

Jesus gave a specific command at one point that his discipiles should tarry in Jerusalem until the promised anointing of Acts 2 arrived.
Should all modern followers also apply that command of Jesus to us today and hurry to Jerusalem to wait until each of us receives the baptism with tongues of fire as they did?

My only point is that some specific commands to those who saw him alive apply uniquely to them. That issue seems to be completely ignored in the discussion on YOU (singular or plural) and the conversation just assumes that it applies to us (living today) even though most of what he says does not apply to us. (We did not travel with him on the earth. We do not need a reminder that he said these things so we will remember when the hour of His crucifixion comes - future tense. We are not sorrowful because Jesus has told us he is leaving us. Etc.)

Yet we are so eager to claim just the one verse that offers them the promise that Jesus gave THEM to carry THEM through what was about to be one of the darkest periods of their life ... without even giving a thought to whether the promise is ours to claim. Instead we wish to quibble about whether we need to share it, or if each of us living today gets his own.

I just thought the question needed to be asked.

 

[atpollard]

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
prooftext. this was not to the 12 disciples.

If we (all Christians living today) have received our own promise of the same blessing written in 1 John 2:12, how does that prove that Jesus was not speaking to his disciples in John 16:4-15? So much of what he says to them is nonsense to us. Most of it applies to a brief period of time after Jesus announces his impending death and before Acts 2.

How does that time apply to us?

 

[MoreCoffee]

When read as addressing the community of the faithful - which is enduring - the words of the Lord make sense both in terms of what is in the immediate future for the community and what is in the distant future for the community. Read it as addressed to individuals and it makes sense only for people 2,000 years ago. God addressed the community of the faithful at Mount Sinai and when that generation was all dead the address was referred to the Israelites alive when Joshua was about to enter the promised land. Reading the plural as address to the community alleviates the difficulty that you've pointed to [MENTION=334]atpollard[/MENTION].

 

[Pedrito]

Post #32:

Im not a very well-educated person (I know, shocking, right? Lol)

Pedrito would like to suggest that education plays little if any part in being able to detect less than honest techniques being used by others. It is a matter of self-training, or maybe getting help from people who are already aware, of from internet sources one might find – it may seem awkward at first, but it is manageable. Something like an American coming to Australia, or vice versa, and learning to drive on the other side of the road.

It is true that Pedrito did some tertiary studies, but they were highly technical in nature, and had no direct bearing on the matter under discussion.

Pedrito thinks he published some of the techniques in another thread some time ago, to help people to not be hoodwinked by clever thought manipulation.

If requested to, Pedrito could try to dig them up and re-present them for people’s benefit.

People could also look at https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-...t-and-intellectually-dishonest-debate-tactics. That contains more than Pedrito would present, but Pedrito would be concentrating on the techniques he has seen more commonly used in Christian circles.

Of interest from the reference above is one technique that people will recognise, and that is distinctly classed a dishonest:

“...trying to win the argument by attacking again and again with the same argument in an effort to wear the opponent down or repeating something over and over in the hope that raw repetition will displace the truth.”

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Post #39:

Clearing up any possible misunderstanding…
This following sentence from my post above→
and Im thinking 'Deception/Manipulation Alert'.
was not directed at Pedrito, but at the example in AGREEMENT with Pedrito re: the deceptive practices/techniques some ppl employ, both written and spoken to manipulate dialogue and sometimes other ppl.
Hope Pedrito didnt take offense to my original post. Hope Pedrito lets him know.

Pedrito thanks Snerfle for the clarification, but assures him that it was not necessary. Pedrito acknowledges the agreement, and thanks Snerfle for it.

 

[Pedrito]

Post #26:

Pedrito wonders how the church (the body of Christ) can know what the “all truth” is, if none of its individual members knows what that “all truth” is.

Post #27:

BY recording the truth as it is discovered. It is discovered in the holy scriptures and in apostolic tradition. The process of discovery appears to be a long process. Each generation discovers new things. Sometimes the discoveries are profound and then they are recorded in church councils.

If that be true, it would seem that the Holy Spirit, expected to lead believers as a conglomerate mass into all truth, actually stepped back, and left it to theologians to progressively discover “truth” in the holy scriptures and in apostolic tradition.

Conversely, wouldn’t it seem reasonable to assume that God, not being the author of confusion, would reveal His truth as a whole to the young, developing, Apostolic Church, and that that truth would be demonstrably in accord with the apostolic writings? (Were God to then choose to specifically inspire early church councils to modify that apostolic belief, that is an adjunctive consideration.)

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But the idea of the Holy Spirit’s leading of theologians of a particular persuasion to progressively “discover” new (additional and sometimes contradictory) truths (over nigh on 2,000 years, and it hasn’t finished yet) from the “holy scriptures” and “apostolic tradition”, both of which must have existed at the very beginning, can be considered highly questionable.

One cannot help but wonder if, for instance, the dramatic rate at which the standards pertaining to marriage annulment have been decreasing in modern times, is an example of that “process of discovery”. The canonisation of St. Christopher and his subsequent “defrocking” exhibits a strangeness as well. And what about the former existence of Infant Limbo (however termed), and its subsequent non-existence?

But, could it be that “apostolic tradition” has itself been changing over that extended period of time?

Or is “truth” not always “discovered in the holy scriptures and in apostolic tradition”, and is therefore subject to change without qualm when convenient?

 

[Pedrito]

Albion in Post #16:

...That's how the RCC allows divorced persons to remarry--it pretends that they were not married in the first place, even if that marriage were considered valid by the same church for decades. Tens of thousands of these quickie remarriages are arranged by the church in this country annually.

MoreCoffee in Post #17:

Nonsense. Just plain prejudicial ignorant nonsense.

Well, in the light of the web page references presented in Post #20 (see below), Albion’s statements seem to be pretty close to the mark. (Pedrito suggests that Albion can be forgiven if his distaste for what he obviously sees as gross hypocrisy, gives rise to rather loose terminology such as “quickie remarriages.”)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ulments-celebrities-catholic-church/71874694/ (If any survey request pops up, it can be skipped.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...ae8-a1d7-76fd0f00675c/?utm_term=.83b4fd0e5e90

http://www.therecord.com.au/blog/pe...ments-the-loose-canon-the-church-cant-ignore/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/09/pope-francis-divorce-annulment-changes

Based on the statistics presented (which Pedrito found to be unexpectedly and almost incredibly high) the Church of Rome (especially the American branch) has clearly lowered its standards as the years have progressed.

 

[Imalive]

We should introduce a new rule here. Whenever someone has a prooftext to show the other one is wrong and you're right, you gotta yell: GOT YA!! And then you get 10 points w every prooftext or minus 10 points if another prooftext proves that text wrong interpreted. Who has 100 points can yell: BINGO!!!!

 

[Imalive]

 

[MoreCoffee]

We should introduce a new rule here. Whenever someone has a prooftext to show the other one is wrong and you're right, you gotta yell: GOT YA!! And then you get 10 points w every prooftext or minus 10 points if another prooftext proves that text wrong interpreted. Who has 100 points can yell: BINGO!!!!

I like that

It make me laugh.

Thanks Imalive. :shake: