The perpetual calendar

On Feb 27, 12:20*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:04*pm, " wrote:



On Feb 26, 6:57*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

On Feb 26, 6:33*pm, " wrote:

On Feb 26, 3:49*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

On Feb 26, 10:10*am, "
wrote:

On Feb 26, 9:21*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

On Feb 25, 10:51*am, "
wrote:

FWIW, the Catholic resources I've looked at don't seem to limit their
use of "Christian" to those who believe in the Nicene Creed.. *Hardon's
_Modern Catholic Dictionary_ says:

Christian: A person who is baptized. A professed Christian also
believes in the essentials of the Christian faith, notably in the
Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed is a later document. I've never noticed it
included in a Missal. (But then, I haven't looked at a Missal in
decades.) It's the creed usually said in Protestant churches (and also
at Episcopal Morning Prayer) when a creed is recited.

Historically, the content of the Apostle's Creed predates the Nicene
Creed (its credos are found, for instance, in the writings of Irenaeus
c. 200 AD, over a century before the Council of Nicea), though the
precise wording used by modern churches has changed some since then.
The Protestant version that you refer to, used by Episcopalean
Churches among others, is a _much_ later formulation--it's also
obviously not what the Catholic dictionary I quoted has in mind..

Then perhaps you should say what you mean by "the Apostles' Creed" if
you don't mean the Apostles' Creed.

_I_ don't mean anything by the Apostle's Creed--it's the Catholic
dictionary that uses "the Apostle's Creed" in the quoted definition,
and (being Catholic) what they mean is quite clearly not a Protestant
formulation.

It ought to be pretty obvious that Catholics generally mean the
Catholic version of the Apostle's Creed when they use that phrase.

Once again you have not addressed the key point about the Nicene Creed
and have instead dwelt on a tangent.-

Did you have a "key point"?

Yes: that the Nicene Creed is not used by all Christian churches.

For some reason you deflected the
discussion to the Apostles' Creed

The introduction of the definition which mentioned the Apostle's Creed
was completely responsive to the original question that involved me in
this thread, not a deflection:

The discussion was about whether there are Christians who don't use
the Nicene creed.

I'm sure there are, and gave examples of Christians who may believe in
the Nicene dogma but not use the creed (e.g. most Quakers--Mike Lyle
pointed out that not all Quakers are Christians) and also of
Christians who don't believe in the dogma of the Nicene creed at all
(a long list, still available upthread).

At that point you claimed they are "by definition, not Christians".

Sigh. The essence of Christian dogma is encapsulated in the Nicene
Creed.

That is a different statement than the original, and would appear to
admit Christians who don't use the Nicene creed (e.g. Christian
Quakers). It still omits many sects who are by common English usage
Christians (including the 10+ million Christians who belong to the
denominations I listed earlier in the thread).

To my mind, there are certain dogmas that all Christians accept, and
there are other Trinitarian dogmas that are not accepted by all
Christians. The Nicene Creed contains the latter, and none of the
definitions of "Christian" I've posted so far indicate that accepting
Trinitarianism is necessary to be considered a Christian. I think in
common parlance, many Gnostics would be considered Christians by most
English-speakers, and they'd be included under the English dictionary
definitions, but the Catholic definition excludes them.

I offered English definitions of "Christian", which include no mention
of the Nicene Creed or Trinitarianism. *I also offered a Catholic
dictionary definition as one example of how even the largest Christian
denominations don't require belief in the Nicene creed to fall within
their definition of "Christian": according to that Catholic
definition, a Christian is one who a) is baptized and b) believes in
the Apostle's Creed.

For some reason, you then completely avoided the core point (that the
definition of Christian used doesn't include any reference to the
Nicene creed) and stated that the BCP version of the Apostle's Creed
is newer than the Nicene creed. *I responded saying that the timeline
is irrelevant, but also pointing out that the BCP version wasn't
relevant to the definition of "Christian" cited. *You then asked what
I meant by the Apostle's Creed, to which I replied that _I_ don't mean
anything by it, I was citing a definition from a Catholic dictionary
and so the relevant question is what _they_ mean by it (which is
obviously the Catholic form).

You still have no offered any definition of Christian, let alone
explained why it might be a superior definition to that given in
Webster's, or the OED, or a Catholic dictionary; in the absence of
that, I'm not sure that there's anything left to debate regarding the
original question.

which you claim exists in Catholic-
land as something other than the familliar Apostles' Creed.

I find your use of "familiar" here somewhat baffling. *Do you mean
more familiar to you? *If so, I'm not sure what the relevance is. *If
not, the Catholic version is both older than and used by more people
than the Book of Common Prayer version, so in general there's no
reason to assume that it isn't the "familiar" version to most people.
I'd personally avoid using that term, though, unless I were
specifically discussing familiarity with respect to some group.

The context should make the version used pretty obvious, anyway. *A
Catholic dictionary is generally going to refer to Catholic forms,
unless they're specifically discussing other faiths. *If someone
quoted the Episcopalian dictionary, the Apostle's Creed would
generally refer to the BCP version.

I have still seen nothing, other than your assertion, to indicate that
there's a "Catholic Apostles' Creed" that's different from the one in
any Protestant prayer book.

Pull out a Catchecism and compare to the Book of Common prayer. Among
obvious differences, the Catholic version is divided into 12 articles;
there are also various differences in wording from the authorized
Anglican versions.

It's much like discussing the Bible--when a Catholic refers to the
Bible, they're most likely referring to a book which includes the Book
of Baruch (as one example). *When an Episcopalian is speaking, they
probably mean a different version from which Baruch is excluded.-

One day I happened to notice a plethora of Biblia Sacra's at the local
Wal-Mart (in Secaucus) and got curious. Not one of them -- neither the
traditional version dating from about the same time as the Douai
version, nor recent translations -- contains what since Luther we have
called the apocryphal books. Aren't most Spanish-speaking Americans
Catholic?

Most are; they're about 1/3 Protestant, and 2/3 Catholic.

The Catholic canon is not the same as the Lutheran Canon + the
Lutheran Apocrypha. There are some books, like Baruch or parts of
Daniel (e.g. Bel and the Dragon) that are in the Apocrypha and the
Catholic canon. There are other books, like 1 & 2 Esdras, that are in
the Lutheran Apocrypha but are not part of the Catholic canon. At
least some of those, including 1 & 2 Esdras, are part of the Eastern
Orthodox canon.

Note also that the Catholic bible doesn't separate out the books in
the same order as the Lutheran Apocrypha--e.g. Baruch in a Catholic
bible appears in between Lamentations and Ezekiel, so if you were
looking for them at the end they'd be easy to miss.

If the bibles that you saw didn't include the Catholic canonical
books, they're not Catholic bibles--I've never seen a bible in a
Catholic Church that omits parts of the Catholic canon.

See, e.g., http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm#IV
" IV. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE

120 It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned
which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books.90
This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46
books for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations
as one) and 27 for the New.91

The Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1
and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1 and 2
Maccabees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the
Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah and
Malachi.

The New Testament: the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of St. Paul to the
Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon,
the Letter to the Hebrews, the Letters of James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2
and 3 John, and Jude, and Revelation (the Apocalypse)."

Or http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM for one approved
Catholic bible text (in English).

On Feb 27, 2:29*am, " wrote:
On Feb 27, 12:20*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:04*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:57*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:33*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 3:49*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 10:10*am, "
wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:21*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 25, 10:51*am, "
wrote:

FWIW, the Catholic resources I've looked at don't seem to limit their
use of "Christian" to those who believe in the Nicene Creed. *Hardon's
_Modern Catholic Dictionary_ says:

Christian: A person who is baptized. A professed Christian also
believes in the essentials of the Christian faith, notably in the
Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed is a later document. I've never noticed it
included in a Missal. (But then, I haven't looked at a Missal in
decades.) It's the creed usually said in Protestant churches (and also
at Episcopal Morning Prayer) when a creed is recited.

Historically, the content of the Apostle's Creed predates the Nicene
Creed (its credos are found, for instance, in the writings of Irenaeus
c. 200 AD, over a century before the Council of Nicea), though the
precise wording used by modern churches has changed some since then.
The Protestant version that you refer to, used by Episcopalean
Churches among others, is a _much_ later formulation--it's also
obviously not what the Catholic dictionary I quoted has in mind.

Then perhaps you should say what you mean by "the Apostles' Creed" if
you don't mean the Apostles' Creed.

_I_ don't mean anything by the Apostle's Creed--it's the Catholic
dictionary that uses "the Apostle's Creed" in the quoted definition,
and (being Catholic) what they mean is quite clearly not a Protestant
formulation.

It ought to be pretty obvious that Catholics generally mean the
Catholic version of the Apostle's Creed when they use that phrase..

Once again you have not addressed the key point about the Nicene Creed
and have instead dwelt on a tangent.-

Did you have a "key point"?

Yes: that the Nicene Creed is not used by all Christian churches.

For some reason you deflected the
discussion to the Apostles' Creed

The introduction of the definition which mentioned the Apostle's Creed
was completely responsive to the original question that involved me in
this thread, not a deflection:

The discussion was about whether there are Christians who don't use
the Nicene creed.

I'm sure there are, and gave examples of Christians who may believe in
the Nicene dogma but not use the creed (e.g. most Quakers--Mike Lyle
pointed out that not all Quakers are Christians) and also of
Christians who don't believe in the dogma of the Nicene creed at all
(a long list, still available upthread).

At that point you claimed they are "by definition, not Christians".

Sigh. The essence of Christian dogma is encapsulated in the Nicene
Creed.

That is a different statement than the original, and would appear to

It may be a different "statement," but it conveys the obvious intent
of the original statement.

Oh, but that's right, you come from a mathematical science (either
math or physics), so you harbor the bizarre belief that human language
is like mathematical statements.

admit Christians who don't use the Nicene creed (e.g. Christian
Quakers). *It still omits many sects who are by common English usage
Christians (including the 10+ million Christians who belong to the
denominations I listed earlier in the thread).

To my mind, there are certain dogmas that all Christians accept, and
there are other Trinitarian dogmas that are not accepted by all
Christians. *The Nicene Creed contains the latter, and none of the
definitions of "Christian" I've posted so far indicate that accepting
Trinitarianism is necessary to be considered a Christian. *I think in
common parlance, many Gnostics would be considered Christians by most
English-speakers, and they'd be included under the English dictionary
definitions, but the Catholic definition excludes them.

Gnostics aren't Christians. (Not that there have been any for about
1500 years.) Did you miss the great outpouring of secondary literature
that followed on the long-delayed publication of the "Gnostic
Gospels"?

I offered English definitions of "Christian", which include no mention
of the Nicene Creed or Trinitarianism. *I also offered a Catholic
dictionary definition as one example of how even the largest Christian
denominations don't require belief in the Nicene creed to fall within
their definition of "Christian": according to that Catholic
definition, a Christian is one who a) is baptized and b) believes in
the Apostle's Creed.

For some reason, you then completely avoided the core point (that the
definition of Christian used doesn't include any reference to the
Nicene creed) and stated that the BCP version of the Apostle's Creed
is newer than the Nicene creed. *I responded saying that the timeline
is irrelevant, but also pointing out that the BCP version wasn't
relevant to the definition of "Christian" cited. *You then asked what
I meant by the Apostle's Creed, to which I replied that _I_ don't mean
anything by it, I was citing a definition from a Catholic dictionary
and so the relevant question is what _they_ mean by it (which is
obviously the Catholic form).

You still have no offered any definition of Christian, let alone
explained why it might be a superior definition to that given in
Webster's, or the OED, or a Catholic dictionary; in the absence of
that, I'm not sure that there's anything left to debate regarding the
original question.

which you claim exists in Catholic-
land as something other than the familliar Apostles' Creed.

I find your use of "familiar" here somewhat baffling. *Do you mean
more familiar to you? *If so, I'm not sure what the relevance is. *If
not, the Catholic version is both older than and used by more people
than the Book of Common Prayer version, so in general there's no
reason to assume that it isn't the "familiar" version to most people.
I'd personally avoid using that term, though, unless I were
specifically discussing familiarity with respect to some group.

The context should make the version used pretty obvious, anyway. *A
Catholic dictionary is generally going to refer to Catholic forms,
unless they're specifically discussing other faiths. *If someone
quoted the Episcopalian dictionary, the Apostle's Creed would
generally refer to the BCP version.

I have still seen nothing, other than your assertion, to indicate that
there's a "Catholic Apostles' Creed" that's different from the one in
any Protestant prayer book.

Pull out a Catchecism and compare to the Book of Common prayer. *Among
obvious differences, the Catholic version is divided into 12 articles;
there are also various differences in wording from the authorized
Anglican versions.

There's no such thing as "a Catechism." When I was little, the few
Catholics I knew had to memorize something called "the Baltimore
Catechism," which had no parallel whatsoever in either my Presbyterian
church or my Episcopal school. The Baltimore Catechism, however, was
rendered obsolete by Vatican II. I don't know what "a Catechism" would
be, fifty years later.

But anyway, how does breaking a text down for the purpose of
discussion make it a different document?

And you're still refusing to enumerate the "various differences in
wording"?

It's much like discussing the Bible--when a Catholic refers to the
Bible, they're most likely referring to a book which includes the Book
of Baruch (as one example). *When an Episcopalian is speaking, they
probably mean a different version from which Baruch is excluded.-

One day I happened to notice a plethora of Biblia Sacra's at the local
Wal-Mart (in Secaucus) and got curious. Not one of them -- neither the
traditional version dating from about the same time as the Douai
version, nor recent translations -- contains what since Luther we have
called the apocryphal books. Aren't most Spanish-speaking Americans
Catholic?

Most are; they're about 1/3 Protestant, and 2/3 Catholic.

The Catholic canon is not the same as the Lutheran Canon + the
Lutheran Apocrypha. *There are some books, like Baruch or parts of
Daniel (e.g. Bel and the Dragon) that are in the Apocrypha and the
Catholic canon. *There are other books, like 1 & 2 Esdras, that are in
the Lutheran Apocrypha but are not part of the Catholic canon. *At
least some of those, including 1 & 2 Esdras, are part of the Eastern
Orthodox canon.

Note also that the Catholic bible doesn't separate out the books in
the same order as the Lutheran Apocrypha--e.g. Baruch in a Catholic
bible appears in between Lamentations and Ezekiel, so if you were
looking for them at the end they'd be easy to miss.

What do you take me for?

If the bibles that you saw didn't include the Catholic canonical
books, they're not Catholic bibles--I've never seen a bible in a
Catholic Church that omits parts of the Catholic canon.

I wasn't in a Catholic Church. I was at a book display catering to the
large Spanish-speaking community of Hudson County, New Jersey.

See, e.g.,http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm#IV
" * *IV. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE

* * 120 It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned
which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books.90
This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46
books for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations
as one) and 27 for the New.91

* * The Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1
and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1 and 2
Maccabees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the
Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah and
Malachi.

* * The New Testament: the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of St. Paul to the
Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon,
the Letter to the Hebrews, the Letters of James, 1 ...

read more »-

I really don't need to read more of you teaching your grandmother to
suck eggs.

On Feb 27, 9:57*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 27, 2:29*am, " wrote:

On Feb 27, 12:20*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:04*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:57*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:33*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 3:49*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 10:10*am, "
wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:21*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 25, 10:51*am, "
wrote:

FWIW, the Catholic resources I've looked at don't seem to limit their
use of "Christian" to those who believe in the Nicene Creed. *Hardon's
_Modern Catholic Dictionary_ says:

Christian: A person who is baptized. A professed Christian also
believes in the essentials of the Christian faith, notably in the
Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed is a later document. I've never noticed it
included in a Missal. (But then, I haven't looked at a Missal in
decades.) It's the creed usually said in Protestant churches (and also
at Episcopal Morning Prayer) when a creed is recited.

Historically, the content of the Apostle's Creed predates the Nicene
Creed (its credos are found, for instance, in the writings of Irenaeus
c. 200 AD, over a century before the Council of Nicea), though the
precise wording used by modern churches has changed some since then.
The Protestant version that you refer to, used by Episcopalean
Churches among others, is a _much_ later formulation--it's also
obviously not what the Catholic dictionary I quoted has in mind.

Then perhaps you should say what you mean by "the Apostles' Creed" if
you don't mean the Apostles' Creed.

_I_ don't mean anything by the Apostle's Creed--it's the Catholic
dictionary that uses "the Apostle's Creed" in the quoted definition,
and (being Catholic) what they mean is quite clearly not a Protestant
formulation.

It ought to be pretty obvious that Catholics generally mean the
Catholic version of the Apostle's Creed when they use that phrase.

Once again you have not addressed the key point about the Nicene Creed
and have instead dwelt on a tangent.-

Did you have a "key point"?

Yes: that the Nicene Creed is not used by all Christian churches.

For some reason you deflected the
discussion to the Apostles' Creed

The introduction of the definition which mentioned the Apostle's Creed
was completely responsive to the original question that involved me in
this thread, not a deflection:

The discussion was about whether there are Christians who don't use
the Nicene creed.

I'm sure there are, and gave examples of Christians who may believe in
the Nicene dogma but not use the creed (e.g. most Quakers--Mike Lyle
pointed out that not all Quakers are Christians) and also of
Christians who don't believe in the dogma of the Nicene creed at all
(a long list, still available upthread).

At that point you claimed they are "by definition, not Christians".

Sigh. The essence of Christian dogma is encapsulated in the Nicene
Creed.

That is a different statement than the original, and would appear to

It may be a different "statement," but it conveys the obvious intent
of the original statement.

No, it conveys a different intent, which is obvious if you reread your
original question: "Doesn't _every_ extant Christian church use the
Nicene Creed? (With or without the _filioque_.)" That's clearly
asking whether the Creed itself is used, and even goes so far as to
specify a precise difference in wording. In fact, you brought it up
because of a word issue: the Nicene Creed contains the word
"catholic". The use of that word, as opposed to some synonym, is
clearly a question of the actual Creed language and not one of
religious dogma. Others in this thread took your question the same
way (see, e.g., Dave Hatunen's response on the subject).

That said, it's still an incorrect statement by what I understand
"Christian" to mean. That you don't consider some large Christian
denominations (e.g. many Adventists) to be Christian strikes me as a
highly idiosyncratic position that doesn't accord with what the word
"Christian" means in English. I've offered numerous definitions to
try to convey this point.

Until you offer a definition of "Christian" with an explanation and
evidence as to why it's superior to those generally accepted by
lexicographers, there's not really much left to discuss.

On Feb 27, 9:57*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 27, 2:29*am, " wrote:

On Feb 27, 12:20*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:04*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:57*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:33*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 3:49*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 10:10*am, "
wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:21*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 25, 10:51*am, "
wrote:

FWIW, the Catholic resources I've looked at don't seem to limit their
use of "Christian" to those who believe in the Nicene Creed. *Hardon's
_Modern Catholic Dictionary_ says:

Christian: A person who is baptized. A professed Christian also
believes in the essentials of the Christian faith, notably in the
Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed is a later document. I've never noticed it
included in a Missal. (But then, I haven't looked at a Missal in
decades.) It's the creed usually said in Protestant churches (and also
at Episcopal Morning Prayer) when a creed is recited.

Historically, the content of the Apostle's Creed predates the Nicene
Creed (its credos are found, for instance, in the writings of Irenaeus
c. 200 AD, over a century before the Council of Nicea), though the
precise wording used by modern churches has changed some since then.
The Protestant version that you refer to, used by Episcopalean
Churches among others, is a _much_ later formulation--it's also
obviously not what the Catholic dictionary I quoted has in mind.

Then perhaps you should say what you mean by "the Apostles' Creed" if
you don't mean the Apostles' Creed.

_I_ don't mean anything by the Apostle's Creed--it's the Catholic
dictionary that uses "the Apostle's Creed" in the quoted definition,
and (being Catholic) what they mean is quite clearly not a Protestant
formulation.

It ought to be pretty obvious that Catholics generally mean the
Catholic version of the Apostle's Creed when they use that phrase.

Once again you have not addressed the key point about the Nicene Creed
and have instead dwelt on a tangent.-

Did you have a "key point"?

Yes: that the Nicene Creed is not used by all Christian churches.

For some reason you deflected the
discussion to the Apostles' Creed

The introduction of the definition which mentioned the Apostle's Creed
was completely responsive to the original question that involved me in
this thread, not a deflection:

The discussion was about whether there are Christians who don't use
the Nicene creed.

I'm sure there are, and gave examples of Christians who may believe in
the Nicene dogma but not use the creed (e.g. most Quakers--Mike Lyle
pointed out that not all Quakers are Christians) and also of
Christians who don't believe in the dogma of the Nicene creed at all
(a long list, still available upthread).

At that point you claimed they are "by definition, not Christians".

Sigh. The essence of Christian dogma is encapsulated in the Nicene
Creed.

That is a different statement than the original, and would appear to

It may be a different "statement," but it conveys the obvious intent
of the original statement.

Oh, but that's right, you come from a mathematical science (either
math or physics), so you harbor the bizarre belief that human language
is like mathematical statements.

admit Christians who don't use the Nicene creed (e.g. Christian
Quakers). *It still omits many sects who are by common English usage
Christians (including the 10+ million Christians who belong to the
denominations I listed earlier in the thread).

To my mind, there are certain dogmas that all Christians accept, and
there are other Trinitarian dogmas that are not accepted by all
Christians. *The Nicene Creed contains the latter, and none of the
definitions of "Christian" I've posted so far indicate that accepting
Trinitarianism is necessary to be considered a Christian. *I think in
common parlance, many Gnostics would be considered Christians by most
English-speakers, and they'd be included under the English dictionary
definitions, but the Catholic definition excludes them.

Gnostics aren't Christians. (Not that there have been any for about
1500 years.) Did you miss the great outpouring of secondary literature
that followed on the long-delayed publication of the "Gnostic
Gospels"?

isn't it better to go along with self-identification?

On Feb 27, 1:40*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 27, 9:57*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 27, 2:29*am, " wrote:

On Feb 27, 12:20*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:04*pm, " wrote:

At that point you claimed they are "by definition, not Christians".

Sigh. The essence of Christian dogma is encapsulated in the Nicene
Creed.

That is a different statement than the original, and would appear to

It may be a different "statement," but it conveys the obvious intent
of the original statement.

No, it conveys a different intent, which is obvious if you reread your
original question: "Doesn't _every_ extant Christian church use the
Nicene Creed? (With or without the _filioque_.)" *That's clearly

Since it's my question, I think I am entitled to state what its intent
was.

asking whether the Creed itself is used, and even goes so far as to
specify a precise difference in wording. *In fact, you brought it up

"Filioque," in case you don't know, is shorthand for centuries of
theological dispute.

(I gather, from the sources you cite, that you are some sort of
conservative Catholic, the type that in Chicago flocked to the one
parish in the city that had dispensation from Rome to say Mass in
Latin, so I wouldn't be surprised if you don't know anything about
such questions.)

because of a word issue: the Nicene Creed contains the word
"catholic". *The use of that word, as opposed to some synonym, is
clearly a question of the actual Creed language and not one of
religious dogma. *Others in this thread took your question the same
way (see, e.g., Dave Hatunen's response on the subject).

That said, it's still an incorrect statement by what I understand
"Christian" to mean. *That you don't consider some large Christian
denominations (e.g. many Adventists) to be Christian strikes me as a
highly idiosyncratic position that doesn't accord with what the word
"Christian" means in English. *I've offered numerous definitions to
try to convey this point.

Until you offer a definition of "Christian" with an explanation and
evidence as to why it's superior to those generally accepted by
lexicographers, there's not really much left to discuss.-

Again I point out, as a linguist, that lexicographers have no special
handle on truth, especially as concerns technical terminology.

On Feb 27, 3:37*pm, Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
On Feb 27, 9:57*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:





On Feb 27, 2:29*am, " wrote:

On Feb 27, 12:20*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:04*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:57*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 6:33*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 26, 3:49*pm, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 26, 10:10*am, "
wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:21*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
On Feb 25, 10:51*am, "
wrote:

FWIW, the Catholic resources I've looked at don't seem to limit their
use of "Christian" to those who believe in the Nicene Creed. *Hardon's
_Modern Catholic Dictionary_ says:

Christian: A person who is baptized. A professed Christian also
believes in the essentials of the Christian faith, notably in the
Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed is a later document. I've never noticed it
included in a Missal. (But then, I haven't looked at a Missal in
decades.) It's the creed usually said in Protestant churches (and also
at Episcopal Morning Prayer) when a creed is recited.

Historically, the content of the Apostle's Creed predates the Nicene
Creed (its credos are found, for instance, in the writings of Irenaeus
c. 200 AD, over a century before the Council of Nicea), though the
precise wording used by modern churches has changed some since then.
The Protestant version that you refer to, used by Episcopalean
Churches among others, is a _much_ later formulation--it's also
obviously not what the Catholic dictionary I quoted has in mind.

Then perhaps you should say what you mean by "the Apostles' Creed" if
you don't mean the Apostles' Creed.

_I_ don't mean anything by the Apostle's Creed--it's the Catholic
dictionary that uses "the Apostle's Creed" in the quoted definition,
and (being Catholic) what they mean is quite clearly not a Protestant
formulation.

It ought to be pretty obvious that Catholics generally mean the
Catholic version of the Apostle's Creed when they use that phrase.

Once again you have not addressed the key point about the Nicene Creed
and have instead dwelt on a tangent.-

Did you have a "key point"?

Yes: that the Nicene Creed is not used by all Christian churches.

For some reason you deflected the
discussion to the Apostles' Creed

The introduction of the definition which mentioned the Apostle's Creed
was completely responsive to the original question that involved me in
this thread, not a deflection:

The discussion was about whether there are Christians who don't use
the Nicene creed.

I'm sure there are, and gave examples of Christians who may believe in
the Nicene dogma but not use the creed (e.g. most Quakers--Mike Lyle
pointed out that not all Quakers are Christians) and also of
Christians who don't believe in the dogma of the Nicene creed at all
(a long list, still available upthread).

At that point you claimed they are "by definition, not Christians".

Sigh. The essence of Christian dogma is encapsulated in the Nicene
Creed.

That is a different statement than the original, and would appear to

It may be a different "statement," but it conveys the obvious intent
of the original statement.

Oh, but that's right, you come from a mathematical science (either
math or physics), so you harbor the bizarre belief that human language
is like mathematical statements.

admit Christians who don't use the Nicene creed (e.g. Christian
Quakers). *It still omits many sects who are by common English usage
Christians (including the 10+ million Christians who belong to the
denominations I listed earlier in the thread).

To my mind, there are certain dogmas that all Christians accept, and
there are other Trinitarian dogmas that are not accepted by all
Christians. *The Nicene Creed contains the latter, and none of the
definitions of "Christian" I've posted so far indicate that accepting
Trinitarianism is necessary to be considered a Christian. *I think in
common parlance, many Gnostics would be considered Christians by most
English-speakers, and they'd be included under the English dictionary
definitions, but the Catholic definition excludes them.

Gnostics aren't Christians. (Not that there have been any for about
1500 years.) Did you miss the great outpouring of secondary literature
that followed on the long-delayed publication of the "Gnostic
Gospels"?

isn't it better to go along with self-identification?-

Of course not! My first example was the "illegal immigrant" who
declared himself to be a US citizen.

On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:37:52 -0800 (PST), Yusuf B Gursey
wrote in

in
sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage. english:

On Feb 27, 9:57*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

[...]

Gnostics aren't Christians. (Not that there have been any for about
1500 years.) Did you miss the great outpouring of secondary literature
that followed on the long-delayed publication of the "Gnostic
Gospels"?

isn't it better to go along with self-identification?

Of course.

Brian

On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:49:01 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
wrote in

in
sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage. english:

On Feb 27, 3:37*pm, Yusuf B Gursey wrote:

On Feb 27, 9:57*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

[...]

Gnostics aren't Christians. (Not that there have been any for about
1500 years.) Did you miss the great outpouring of secondary literature
that followed on the long-delayed publication of the "Gnostic
Gospels"?

isn't it better to go along with self-identification?-

Of course not! My first example was the "illegal immigrant" who
declared himself to be a US citizen.

Which is obviously irrelevant for the reason that I gave
before.

Brian

On Feb 27, 4:02*pm, "Brian M. Scott" wrote:
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:37:52 -0800 (PST), Yusuf B Gursey
wrote in

in
sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage. english:

On Feb 27, 9:57*am, "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

[...]

Gnostics aren't Christians. (Not that there have been any for about
1500 years.) Did you miss the great outpouring of secondary literature
that followed on the long-delayed publication of the "Gnostic
Gospels"?
isn't it better to go along with self-identification?

Of course.

thanks. I agree with you. it would be different if the illegal
immigrant merely declared himself as ethnically an "American", since
ethnicity is primarily a matter of slef-identification. citizenship
isn't. if one doesn't consider religiion a matter of self-
identification, one goes the way to morally legitimizing institutions
like the Inquisition.


Brian

On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:48:14 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
wrote in

in
sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage. english:

On Feb 27, 1:40*pm, " wrote:

[...]

Until you offer a definition of "Christian" with an
explanation and evidence as to why it's superior to
those generally accepted by lexicographers, there's not
really much left to discuss.-

Again I point out, as a linguist, that lexicographers have
no special handle on truth, especially as concerns
technical terminology.

But 'Christian' is very far from being exclusively a
technical term.

Brian