Quote:
|
Originally Posted by archpaladin
I am and I am not. I won't use the term as a descriptor, but I consider myself far more fundamentalist than most people I imagine posting here. In truth, I believe that because faith varies from individual from individual you can't adequately label people like this. Christianity is meant to be a term to describe those who follow Christ. I think this is possible regardless of whether we believe certain verses in the Bible are inerrant or not. For example, one's belief in the specifics of the book of Jonah, IMO, has no bearing on your salvation. However, start tampering with what is literal in regard to what Jesus said and did and your salvation may be in trouble.
* * *
I think one issue with "moderate" Christianity is that it can promote laziness and a lack of evaluation of belief which can stifle spiritual development
|
You can't have it both ways, archpaladin. Jesus is reported in scripture to have validated, as true, everything in the Old Testament. Therefore, to not accept that Jonah was indeed inside the belly of a whale is either a direct refutation of what Jesus said, or an admission that Jesus was misquoted. Personally, I believe (and hope) that Jesus was misquoted a lot, the divinely inspired writings of men no more likely to be 100% literally true and accurate, ultimately, than uninspired writings. It's a huge leap, and must be made on faith alone to exclusion of all logic, to say that because scripture was divinely inspired, it must be the literal and inerrant word of God. I'm not lazy for failing to make that leap, but rather mostly focused on what Jesus did and the meaning of that instead of what others said he said.