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Sebastien Richard

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“Not all christians are loving, but anyone who is loving is a christian. Not all jews are just, but anyone who is just is a jew. Not all buddhists are compassionate, but anyone who is compassionate is a buddhist. Not all muslims are peace-loving, but anyone who is peace-loving is a muslim. Not all hindus are advaita or nonsectarian, but anyone who is nonsectarian is a hindu. Not all humanists are accountable, but anyone who is accountable is a humanist. Our religious identity says nothing about our character, but our behavior towards others says it all.”

“You get healthy by playing sports, not by screaming at the television. Likewise, you become divine by practicing religion, not by yelling scripture. And how do you practice religion? By loving your neighbor, instead of asking for some identification to authenticate that they are white, straight and catholic americans.”

“Christians wanted to affirm certain beliefs. But in some instances, if those affirmations were pressed to an extreme, they did not allow Christians to affirm other beliefs that they or other Christians also wanted to affirm. We have seen, for example, that some Christians wanted to affirm that Christ was human, but they did so to such an extent that they refused to acknowledge he was divine. Others wanted to affirm that he was divine and did so to such an extent that they refused to acknowledge he was human. Others tried to get around the problem by claiming that he was two different things: part of him was human and part of him was divine; but this solution brought division and disunity instead of harmony and oneness. Others wanted to affirm that since there can be only one God, Jesus could be divine only if he himself was that one God come to earth. But that solution ended up causing Christians to say that Jesus begot himself as the father to his own son, along with other equally confusing formulations. Some superscholars of the day such as Origen tried to resolve the problems in more sophisticated ways, but these views also led to ideas that were later deemed objectionable, [...] Throughout all these debates, we see Christian thinkers trying to figure it all out, wanting to make certain affirmations that they took to be gospel truth. [...] Eventually a Christology emerged that affirmed at one and the same time aspects of what opposing heresies affirmed, while refusing to deny what they denied. This led to a significantly refined but highly paradoxical understanding of how it is that Jesus could be God.”