The Futility of the idea of True Christian Doctrine
A Christian forum I visit currently has a discussion between a Protestant Christian and an Eastern Orthodox Christian about true Christian doctrine. Anyone who has frequented religious forums has probably seen a similar discussion. Such discussions show the fatal flaw in the teaching of Jesus: sincere Christians cant agree on what he taught and what is true doctrine.
I once read a book by an Eastern Orthodox monk (too long ago to recall the title) that referred to the so-called Churches of the West. Ouch. The pope is the anti-Christ, said Luther. Take that, Catholics! But the Roman Catholic Church is the One, True Church©. Take that, Protestants!
Einstein was able to make his theory of general relativity clear enough so that scientists understand what he said. But Jesus allegedly a God just couldnt make true doctrine clear. So, Christians dispute even how to be saved! which is the very message Jesus was supposed to have brought us.
And so we have sincere Christians not being able to agree on true Christian doctrine, even about how to be saved. What a mess supposedly the result of a God coming to Earth specifically to tell us how to be saved. Einstein could do better. Why not Jesus?
Suggestion: give up the official religion of the Roman Empire and its nonsense and start searching for the truth.
I once read a book by an Eastern Orthodox monk (too long ago to recall the title) that referred to the so-called Churches of the West. Ouch. The pope is the anti-Christ, said Luther. Take that, Catholics! But the Roman Catholic Church is the One, True Church©. Take that, Protestants!
Einstein was able to make his theory of general relativity clear enough so that scientists understand what he said. But Jesus allegedly a God just couldnt make true doctrine clear. So, Christians dispute even how to be saved! which is the very message Jesus was supposed to have brought us.
And so we have sincere Christians not being able to agree on true Christian doctrine, even about how to be saved. What a mess supposedly the result of a God coming to Earth specifically to tell us how to be saved. Einstein could do better. Why not Jesus?
Suggestion: give up the official religion of the Roman Empire and its nonsense and start searching for the truth.
Comments (82)
Why did you frame the futility of "true Christian doctrine" in terms of what "Jesus taught"? In light of the fact that Christian doctrine is based on what the Bible on the whole says rather than what "Jesus taught". What's more what Paul taught serves as the basis for interpreting the rest of the Bible rather than what "Jesus taught". Ultimately this is what makes "true Christian doctrine" futile.
Yeah, and you can see the same kind of discussions about quantum mechanics and what is the true interpretation, or is realismor idealism and which is the right metaphysical view, etc ..
And so, do we want to say this demonstrates the fatal flaw of anyones views and philosophies around these topics?
I think not.
Perhaps the most prevalent theme in the gospel preached by Jesus was the importance of HIS words. The words He spoke while He preached His gospel. Not the words of the Bible on the whole. Not the words of Paul. HIS words. Jesus went on and on about it. Emphasized the point time and again. Issued warning after warning.
Hear His word.
Not just hear His word, but understand His word.
Not just understand His word, but believe His word.
Not just believe His word, but follow His word.
Not just follow His word, but abide in and keep His word.
It is the failure of Christians, including Paul, to hear, understand and believe His word. Instead they hear, understand and believe the words of those other than Jesus. Ultimately this is what makes "true Christian doctrine" futile.
As but a few examples:
John 12
46 I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.
50 I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.
48 He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.
John 18
37...For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.
John 10
27My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
I expected this objection. The math of Quantum Mechanics works; it can describe phenomena within the accuracy equal to describing the distance from New York to San Francisco within the width of a human hair. Physicists argue about what the math means, not the math itself.
Besides, if Jesus/Bible/St. Paul didn't do any better than scientists then why should anyone believe they are teaching divine truth?
Seems to me that the notion of doctrine is of christian origin:
Quoting etymonline.com
One of the characteristic differences between classical and medieval thinking is the idea that there is one true belief, and that those who do not share it need be persecuted. Rome did not much care what you believed so long as you observed obsequence to the Emperor. They worried about what you did, not what you thought. Christianity seems to have been the source of right-think.
Quoting Banno
Thought crime. :eyes:
IIRC, Camus drew totalitarian parallels between Communism and Christianity on this basis in The Rebel, which butt hurt Parisian communists back in the day and ended his friendship with Sartre and others. Or maybe it was Arendt ...
It's kind of ironic because as far as we know there are no records of Yeshua ben Yosef words or whoever the first century figure/s was who may have inspired the legends. So how much should we care about this?
Added to my wish list. Thanks.
One of the things Arendt focused upon was how international visions of a world fueled many local events. And thus, her distinction between mutual ethnic hatred from antisemitism as a phenomenon.
Interesting. Seems reasonable to place import on the quality of the underlying concepts conveyed. Evidently you place import on the quantity of records kept instead.
From what I gather, the words attributed to Jesus from the beginning of His ministry through His crucifixion as documented across the four gospels: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are the only extant records.
And that's not problematic?
Or is it that only the stuff that is the same in all four gospels is true...?
That's quite the straw man. I made no such argument.
Much of the other stuff based on Mark, which is still decades after the supposed events. The gospels are anonymous documents which are copies of translations of copies of translations etc.
The first task here is to demonstrate that the Jesus story in the books comports with an actual life and words of a real person/god. Until anyone can do this, they are, it seems to me, just doing book reports.
Telling that you intentionally omitted the following from my previous post:
Quoting ThinkOfOne
Pay particular attention to the sentence I placed in bold.
What is the True Christian Doctrine, apart from the stuff of which you, personally, happen to approve?
Interesting and odd way of looking at it from my perspective. You say 'intentionally omitted' as though I made a sinister choice. Is that what you intended?
Yes, for me the first principles are: what was, or was not actually said. Who was or was not actually a person/god.
Everything else comes after.
If we have no record of any such figure saying any such things, or doing any of the things described, then what you have is functionally no different to finding value in Harry Potter saying things. And there may well be value in the words and deeds of a fictional figure. I value the ethical world of George Elliot's novels.
Quoting ThinkOfOne
As what? What are you getting at - as truths found in myths, or is it something more?
What mechanism do you use to determine 'quality' and how do you identify 'underlying concepts'?
Alternately, a believer might just say that it not divine truth that get us in trouble but the fallible human that gets confused.
And the main point is just because disagreement exist does not necessarily mean divine truth is futile.
Scientists may disagree on the meaning of experimental results, but we would not go as far to say it is futile to think that there may be a better theory or a better experiment to perform.
How important are reading comprehension skills?
How important is it to understand context?
Perhaps a thought experiment will help.
Let's say that Einstein passed away in obscurity, but prior to his passing Einstein had fully developed his thoughts and fully documented them in a journal. Let's say that an author came across this journal and wrote a fictitious account of a scientist and liberally interspersed the novel with quotes from Einstein's journal depicting them as entries from a journal kept by the fictitious scientist. The author then destroyed Einstein's journal after the novel was published.
In and of themselves, off what value are the underlying concepts conveyed by the journal entries in the novel?
The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, you mean. It has those four Attributes, as was decided in 381 C.E. or A.D.
The various schisms in Christianity all began, I think, with arguments over whether Jesus was/is God. Some said yes, some said no. "No" was found not to be quite good enough--he had to be God, in some way. So, some said he was a kind of subordinate divinity, created by the one God. Some said he became God. Others said that he really was God--one in being with the Father--having the same substance, not a similar one, so God became man, though not really man, being also God. Come to think of it, there's only one God, but God has three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost (I prefer Ghost to Spirit). And so it all began, all derived from the seemingly foolish attempt to make someone God but at the same time maintain there's one God. Very different from the friendly pagan belief that a man may be or become a god, but so what? One more god among many.
The key difference is we can readily demonstrate that Einstein actually lived, was a real person and we can demonstrate what he did. And we can readily compare the real person to any novel he may have inspired. So it's a very different situation. Also it is not claimed that Einstein is a god and had supernatural power. But I get what you are trying to say.
Maybe it's more like that 2012 movie Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter wherein Lincoln is depicted as a killer of vampires who works secretly for the US government. Clearly based on a real person, place and time, but almost nothing said or done in the story actually happened.
C'mon. Even here you once again intentionally omitted text from my post that is germane to the discussion:
Quoting ThinkOfOne
Did you miss the fact that it's a thought experiment? Did you miss the fact that in this thought experiment
"Einstein passed away in obscurity...The author then destroyed Einstein's journal after the novel was published"? As such, in this thought experiment we CANNOT "readily demonstrate that Einstein actually lived, was a real person and we can demonstrate what he did." In this thought experiment, it is NOT a "key difference".
Quoting ThinkOfOne
You need to watch this sort of claim. You don't know what was omitted by intention or otherwise. I usually read this stuff quickly during breaks at work.
So, in your hypothetical, the person is not a god or a miracle worker and not the founder of a religion. That's the first critical difference. Because if they were then there's a different kind of scrutiny involved. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. They are not equivalent examples. Also, even an obscure and almost totally hidden 20th century scientist can be identified fairly readily using records and research.
That said - if the journal has actual science documented in it that can be tested empirically and validated, then we can accept that part of the information. The testable part. The other information we would be unable to confirm. It might not matter if Einstein was fictional as the methods described could be confirmed.
But now you have another problem. Trying to fit your hypothetical into the Yeshua/Jesus story.
Where is the equivalent of a journal with actual words in it as source material for the gospels which are copies of translations of copies of translations, written decades after the events? Your thought experiment is predicated on a real and ordinary person who has left direct first hand source material via a written record of actual words said. And only one person involved in the process which took those words and recast them in fiction. Can you demonstrate that Yeshua kept a diary? Can you demonstrate that any notes were ever taken of Yeshua's itinerant preaching? Can you demonstrate that there is any connection at all between any words as they appear in the gospels and any words said by any actual person?
It isn't out of character for you to omit text from my posts that is germane to the discussion, then criticize what you've quoted as if it were written without the omitted text. Have you considered that perhaps if you had it sitting in front of you, you wouldn't keep losing track of what I've written? Regardless, your omitting text isn't "inadvertent". As such, it's "intentional".
Quoting Tom Storm
Well, perhaps you don't understand thought experiments. Or you've lost track of the context of this thought experiment. Perhaps it's once again due to the fact that you "read this stuff quickly during breaks at work."
Quoting Tom Storm
You're really something. As I explained:
Quoting ThinkOfOne
Evidently you're hellbent on characterizing it as an " imputation of a person's motives or intentions".
What's more, how does your ongoing failure to keep track of what I've written show "good manners" or " demonstrate good faith"? You're really something.
I did address your response with the following:
Quoting ThinkOfOne
If you kept track of what I've written, understood thought experiments and kept track of the context of the thought experiment, perhaps you'd understand that your response is irrelevant to the point of the thought experiment.
Thought experiments are only useful if they provide insight on the matter you are trying to illustrate. We disagree about whether you were successful in this attempt. I'm not 'hellbent' on anything, just bemused at your imputations.
Quoting ThinkOfOne
I see this as avoiding the argument by claiming it doesn't count.
Maybe you could explain why you think your thought experiment/scenario is of use here.
Well, it's clear that you can't be bothered to keep track of our discussion. Why should I be bothered to keep explaining what you keep missing because you "read this stuff quickly during breaks at work"?
You're really something.
Interesting that you choose again to attack and belittle rather than to clarify. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that perhaps you are challenged by this kind of discussion. Take care.
, so far as I can see, you have not given a reply to this point.
Quoting Banno
Nor addressed this directly.
Your posts have reinforced the view that apologetics resorts to ad hom and insult when challenged.
Do you have anything substantive to say here?
As I explained in my previous post as you've once again intentionally omitted from my post:
Quoting ThinkOfOne
And yet another low quality post from @banno. What else is new?
Is your claim that concepts you deem to be of superior quality are those taught by Jesus, and those of lesser quality are not his own?
To understand that sentence you'll need to read it in the context of the entirety of that post within the context of @Tom Storm's post. He seemed place import on the quantity of records kept instead of the quality of the underlying concepts conveyed. Go figure. Tried to explain the fallacy of that to him, but he kept getting lost.
I did read what Tom wrote. He made the point that we do not know whether or not Jesus actually said the things attributed to him. You lay emphasis on:
Quoting ThinkOfOne
Quoting ThinkOfOne
But you go on to say:
Quoting ThinkOfOne
The words attributed to Jesus are not records of what he actually said but records of what these anonymous gospels writers said he said.
You then introduce your thought experiment, the point of which seems to be that it does not matter who said these things, that what is important is the quality of what was said. There is a shift here from "HIS" words to the words themselves.
And this brings us back to my question:
Quoting Fooloso4
The above was written in an entirely different context. To understand those snippets you'll need to read them in the context of the entirety of that post within the context of @Art48's post.
Why do you keep taking everything out of context? Have you not yet realized that it's a poor methodology that often results in false conclusions? You really need to reassess your critical thinking skills. Wouldn't hurt to brush up on your reading comprehension skills as well.
Curiously, it's a methodology often employed by Christians when interpreting scripture. They often take verses or snippets of verses out of context, then cobble them together as if the individual contexts don't matter. As such, they also often draw false conclusions.
And yet another ad hom post from you. nothing is new?
Quoting ThinkOfOne
Funny, that you repeat this accusation at all who disagree with you. Perhaps your writing lacks clarity. Perhaps you do not wish to consider any criticism. Either way, you avoid addressing the issues that your critiques have raised.
You seem to think we can rely on the words of Jesus, despite not knowing what they are.
Address that.
lol. From what I gather, most are well aware of your low quality posts. For example, from a mod:
Take this a wake-up call to step up the quality of your posts. Thus far, in your responses to me on this thread and others, it's been nothing but a steady stream of low quality posts and baseless accusations. Seriously, in the main they have been laughably bad.
There's no real way out of that one other than playing a speculative game about the text holding underlying concepts, which hasn't gone so well.
It's the congenital problem with the notion of "revealed" scripture. "It's the word of God, but only under my interpretation". It's partly why I listed Quoting Banno
as a reduction of philosophy to mere theology, in one of my insubstantial threads.
But there is something to be said for an archeology of the concept of "doctrine", alluded to earlier. Is the notion of "one, true doctrine", worthy of persecuting the heretic, a contribution from Christianity?
?
Why do you keep evading the issues?
Why should anyone take you seriously? You're nothing more than a troll as you keep demonstrating.
Present a cogent argument that isn't a straw man and I'll be happy to address it.
Sage advice.
Quoting ThinkOfOne
Then your best approach would be not to reply to my posts, or to report them to the mods.
You really need to take that advice.
There doesn't seem to be much point in reporting your posts to the mods as this was the response I was given from a mod:
In a way it's kind of funny. You, @Tom Storm and @Fooloso4 are like a group of school girls who back each other and think that what they believe is true simply because they each have the backing of the other girls. Also like them, for all intents and purposes, you're fungible.
I have not presented any argument, cogent or otherwise. I asked a question. You did not answering it.
The fact of the matter is that many members do take him seriously. Over the years he has demonstrated why he should be taken seriously.
You make the sophomore mistake of confusing disagreement and disregard.
In the short time you have been here, however, you have amply demonstrated that you cannot be taken seriously. If you cannot address the questions and problems posed then you cannot be taken seriously as someone capable of reasoned discourse.
Looks like some sort of holistic gnosticism, but in the absence of clarity that's mere surmise.
A while back he was arguing for a metaphorical interpretation, but despite repeated attempts to get him to explain the meaning of the metaphors, was unable or unwilling to do so.
He attempts to root out the influence of Paul, but fails to see the influence of and on the author of John and how what he takes to be the teachings of Jesus are actually the teachings of John, or how John differs significantly not only from Paul but from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
As to his thought experiment: on the one hand he seems to be arguing that it does not matter whether these are the words of Einstein or the fictitious scientists, what matters is not who said it but what is said. But this seems to imply that what is important is not whether Jesus actually said the words attributed to him, what is important is the "underlying concepts".
As far as I can see, he accepts the underlying concepts found in John and rejects those found not only in Paul but also those he suspects come from the influence of Paul. One obvious problem is that in the thought experiment the actual words of Einstein are preserved and transmitted, but we have no idea the extent to which the words of Jesus have been preserved and transmitted.
It stands to reason that the further we get from the source the less likely it will be that there will be an accurate transmission. There is then good reason to suspect that what @ThinkOfOne calls "HIS" word is the word of the pseudonymous John not Jesus.
Once I found out that the two elements could not be separated, it became difficult to understand any of it.
Yes. There, I said it.
The Jews, though exclusive and intolerant, didn't demand that everyone be Jewish. In fact, it seems they weren't all that happy with the idea. The pre-Christian pagans of antiquity were quite tolerant for the most part. Rome, for example, were never moved to persecute pagan cults, even welcoming that of Cybele, though it was known to forbid certain religious practices in the city it thought scandalous now and then.
It took Christianity to foster the view that not only is there one true God and one true doctrine but that everyone in the world must believe in that God and that doctrine, on pain of persecution and death. Roman persecution of Christians was haphazard and politically motivated. Christian persecution was relentless and omnipresent, practiced by the various sects which emerged from it, and thus the concept of heresy.
So liberalism grew despite, not because, of Christianity.
You can see how totalitarian systems were influenced by Christianity. Stalin studied to be a priest... go figure.
Oh, yes. Fascism as well.
Stalin, it seems, was very intelligent and well educated for his time and place. He was also a poet, or he wrote poetry in any case. What would Plato, that Original Totalitarian (OT) but scolder of poets, have to say about that? Perhaps Stalin was the philosopher-king Plato longed for all those years ago. Or perhaps Hitler, the artist.
Certainty is the death of thought, and tolerance, and justice, and mercy, and.....
Since the topic is not Plato, I will keep this brief.
Plato, like Socrates, was a zetetic skeptic. The dialogues often end in aporia. When compared one to another we see that they bring into question and problematize claims raised in other dialogues. Those like Popper who see the Republic as a form of Totalitarianism, fail to understand Plato. Plato makes it clear that the just city made in speech is not intended to be a model for any actual city. Rather than offer solutions, it points to the problematic nature of political life; in part by showing how radical and unacceptable the proposed solutions, such as the breeding program, are.
Plato does not reject poetry. His works are themselves a form of poesis. We should not be so dazzled by the image of transcendent knowledge in the Republic that we fail to see the importance of the imagination, the making and use of images. The Forms are images of knowledge. The Timaeus points to several of the inadequacies of the Republic, including the idea of the Forms.
Thank heaven.
Quoting Fooloso4
Come now. I've been a lawyer for a long time. I recognize a cross-examination of a very friendly witness; I've done more than a few. In the case of Plato and his sock-puppet Socrates (I don't think it's believed by anyone that Plato was a stenographer, faithfully recording questions asked of the real Socrates and answers given by him), Plato isn't even examining such a witness; he's asking questions he's contrived and answering them as he pleases. He has points to make and uses dialogue as a rhetorical device to make them.
I understand, though, that after he humiliated himself by trying to make a philosopher-king of Dion in Syracuse, he sensibly abandoned the horrible, nightmare Republic he envisioned, and was not as favorable of a system by which we would be led on forced marches to perfection as he deemed it.
That's to his credit. But Plato was an advocate of certain political and philosophical positions, not merely engaged in an academic enterprise.
Fascinating!
Both Aristophanes and Xenophon portray Socrates as a skeptic. But what is at issue here is not Socrates but Plato, and more specifically, the Republic.
Plato's Socrates is not intended to be a portrayal of the man himself. As Plato says in his Second Letter, the Socrates of the dialogues is a Socrates made "young and beautiful" (314c), or alternatively translated as "new and noble". I won't speculate as to why he thought this necessary, but in any case, he is the creation of Plato.
Quoting Ciceronianus
It was not that Plato tried to make Dion a philosopher-king but that with the urging and help of Dion to first make the tyrant Dionysius and later his son the king Dionysius II more philosophical. Even if Plato had been more successful in improving their character, this is a far cry from making a king a philosopher.
What should be understood is that the philosopher-king of the Republic is a philosopher in name only. He is not one who desires wisdom but one who possesses it. The philosopher-king is to rule, not because he is a lover of wisdom, one who desires wisdom, but because he possessed divine wisdom. Since no one is divinely wise, there can be no philosopher-king.
Quoting Ciceronianus
The two are connected. The education in the Republic occurs at two levels, the image of one who escapes the cave and the instruction the aristocratic Glaucon and Adeimantus, brothers of Plato, receive through Socrates. The philosopher-kings of the Republic are an aristocratic class, but the political and philosophical education of the aristocrats Glaucon and Adeimantus in the Republic are markedly different from the education of those who escape the cave and acquire transcendent knowledge of the Forms. In other words, part of their education is knowledge of their ignorance. If the best regime is aristocratic, then aristocratic education must include education of their ignorance and the desire to know. The best regime is one in which the rulers are zetetic skeptics.
You're right. I mixed all those Ds up. And I certainly agree that Plato didn't make a tyrant a philosopher.
But I think Plato was being an advocate in The Republic, not just musing. He may have understood that the terrible state he envisioned wasn't likely to arise, but he envisioned it nonetheless, and not merely as a kind of stalking horse. The quest for certainty is poisonous, and Plato valued certainty and perfection.
Yes, but of what? As I read him not for certainty and perfection. He provides the image, and it is one that has inspired philosophers and theologians, but as an image of what to aspire to it is at the same time an image of how far we fall short of its attainment.
The irony should not be lost that it is the same Socrates who professes his ignorance who speaks go grandly and eloquently about the very thing he does not know. In the Republic he plainly states that he is not certain about the myth of Forms he creates.
Quoting Ciceronianus
It is not simply that it was not likely to arise but that he did not intend for it to arise. The city in speech is intended to illustrate the problem of justice in the soul writ large. The Republic is fundamentally about the politics of the soul.
As to actual cities, it points to the irreconcilable tensions between the private and the public, between one's own and the demands of the city. If the family is a natural unit, then given the central importance Plato gives to nature and in particular human nature, then the "solution" proposed in the Republic is clearly not tenable or to be taken seriously. It is the problem, which goes to the root of what it is to be human, and not this solution, that must be taken seriously.
The dialogues should be read in the Socratic spirit in which they are written. Nothing should be simply accepted as Plato's opinion or conclusion on a matter but rather everything should be subject to question and challenge. This is what is meant when he says in the Second Letter that 'no treatise by Plato exists or will exist".
Quoting Ciceronianus
In Socratic terms, what is poisonous is not the quest for certainty but the assumption that one knows, and not knowing that one does not know. Dialectic is a method of hypothesis. The goal is to be free of hypothesis, but Plato is clear that the Forms themselves are hypothetical. See the discussion of hypothesis in the Phaedo.
:up: Plato clearly believed in a divinity of some sort.
Quoting Ciceronianus
He was profoundly disillusioned by the behavior of the Athenians around the time of Socrates' execution.
Your Plato sounds a lot like Dewey. All judgments and conclusions subject to revision, based on new information, the results of experiment and inquiry. That's an interesting interpretation, but I think it's an example of anachronism. It seems to me that Plato is a profoundly conservative figure, which perhaps may be expected in a cousin of Critias, one of the infamous Thirty
Tyrants of Athens.
I suppose, in an attempt to steer it back on topic (not that there is anything wrong in going off topic in an interesting way), we might ask if the idea of a "True Platonic Doctrine" is futile?
Must we go with either 's Plato the aristocrat? Or with 's Plato the zetetic skeptic? Or do we suppose that as with the gospels, that the idea of "one true Platonic doctrine" is itself fraught?
Is it the discussion that counts?
Well, we shouldn't forget that Christianity borrowed a good deal from Platonism, and later Neo-Platonism.
There are scholarly viewpoints on both Plato and the gospels.
Sometimes Christians decide they have special knowledge about how to properly interpret the Bible. Apparently the same thing can happen with Plato. The former gives rise to a new Christian sect. I have no idea what the latter view, clearly opposed to scholarship, becomes.
Presumably, Islam ("{submission") borrowed the idea in spreading acceptance of its teachings.
Sadly, Aquinas' justification for executing heretics, referred to by Catholics during the inquisitions, was a passage from Plato.
Quoting Banno
"Islam" was originally a term for an aspect of the Arabian economy. Traveling merchants could pay the local bandits to allow them to pass through the desert unmolested. This pact was called islam, and the one who paid this fee was a muslim (one who submits).
When Muhammad joined all the Arabian tribes together, a problem arose stemming from the fact that raiding was part of the economy, and now nobody was raiding anybody else. This led to the eruption of Arabs out into the Iranian world. At first, the Muslims wouldn't allow Iranians to convert to Islam. Eventually there was a revolt, and the Iranians took back their territory, as Muslims. Now former Christians, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians were the Muslim elite. This is why, for the most part, Islam was spread in the Persian language, not Arabic.
It has been said that each generation has its own Plato. Cited here:
Quoting Ciceronianus
A few points to be considered. In a period of tumultuous political upheaval, to be conservative is not to support any particular regime but to support the ancestral. Plato is writing in the shadow cast by the trial and conviction of Socrates for impiety and corrupting the youth, that is, for the danger he posed to the ancestral. Plato had to be cautious so as not to suffer the same fate either for himself or for philosophy itself. And yet, in the Republic the poets are banned. That is a profoundly anti-conservative act.
Its own Jesus, too, I believe. I wonder if this is characteristic in cases where writings are considered, perhaps not necessarily sacred, but subjects of reverence. They cannot be altered, but must be interpreted as needed to provide support of what "each generation" deems significant.
Yes. Starting from the first generation, with Paul's "Christ". Hebrew scriptures were appropriated and stories of Jesus told to fit the appropriated texts. The Arian controversy . Martin Lither's principle of interpretation. Calvin. On and on until today regarding questions of abortion and homosexuality.