If you have been following this blog for the last few days, you know that I and some of my readers have been engaged in an ongoing conversation with a couple of ex-evangelical-Christian agnostics and atheists. These ex-Christians have presented us with some very interesting, and even at first glance, disturbing, information about the Bible.
These men no longer believe that the Bible is God’s Word, as they once so strongly believed. These former pastors, youth leaders, and Sunday School teachers no longer believe that Jesus rose from the dead, that he is God, or that there is any God! What was it that triggered the loss of faith in these former believers?
I believe it is this: they were taught that the BIBLE is inerrant.
Some of them believed that the King James Version of the Bible is inerrant. Some were taught that the surviving Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures must be and are inerrant. They were taught and believed that when God promised to preserve his Word, he meant that he would preserve every word that he spoke to the human authors of the Holy Scriptures.
When someone pointed out to them the fact that the King James Bible AND all the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of Holy Scripture, from which translators have given us our English Bibles for the last more than 500 years, are chock-full of alterations, additions, and errors made by sloppy, tired, or over-zealous scribes, copying and recopying the Scriptures over and over again for a period of almost 1,500 years….their faith in God was destroyed.
So is the BIBLE the foundation of the Church?
I would say an emphatic, “No!”
So what is the foundation of the Christian Church? Answer: Jesus Christ, the Word. HE…is inerrant!
Below are the words of one of my favorite hymns. Anytime you feel discouraged about your faith or unsure of the strength of your faith, read the following words, and then listen to these wonderful words put to beautiful music in the link below.
Whether you are a Lutheran or a Baptist, a Roman Catholic or a Methodist, an Episcopalian or a Pentecostal, a Presbyterian or a Church of Christ, a Greek Orthodox or a Mennonite, this is OUR song!
1. The church's one foundation
is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is his new creation
by water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died.
2. Elect from every nation,
yet one o'er all the earth;
her charter of salvation,
one Lord, one faith, one birth;
one holy name she blesses,
partakes one holy food,
and to one hope she presses,
with every grace endued.
3. Though with a scornful wonder
we see her sore oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed,
yet saints their watch are keeping;
their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.
4. Mid toil and tribulation,
and tumult of her war,
she waits the consummation
of peace forevermore;
till, with the vision glorious,
her longing eyes are blest,
and the great church victorious
shall be the church at rest.
5. Yet she on earth hath union
with God the Three in One,
and mystic sweet communion
with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
like them, the meek and lowly,
on high may dwell with thee.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
” Paul’s claim is a vision or altered state of consciousness”
Says who?? So just because it defies the laws of science, it is impossible that Jesus really appeared in a (post-resurrection) human body? Sorry. Christianity believes in the existence of the supernatural. Yes, we need to give convincing evidence of the Resurrection, but we do not need to prove the real “appearances” of angels, demons, Satan, or the resurrected bodies of Jesus, Moses, or Elijah appearing to human beings.
LikeLike
Your claims in #6 appear to me to have less historical support than the claims of Christianity. Please supply sources for your assertions.
LikeLike
“The resurrection accounts demonstrate legendary development, authorship modifications, repeated incongruities, and implausible occurrences.”
If the Resurrection of Jesus is a conspiracy of lies and distortions of facts, why didn't Christians get their story straight when they had approximately one hundred years before the first manuscript that we have in existence today is “published”. If the story of the Resurrection is a fabrication, then why did the perpetrators coordinate their stories so that they said the exact same thing? THEY LEFT THE “DISCREPANCIES” AS THEY WERE. What sense does that make?
LikeLike
Gary,
1. “…fabricate a hoax”: I never said the New Testament was a hoax, only that with so many versions and so much time between event and record, there's no way to tell what actually happened. Exaggeration, transmission error, and bias reporting are common enough even nowadays, when it's much easier fact-check, so it's not only possible but probable that this also happened in the copying and recopying of New Testament texts. Compare the case of travel stories of the Middle Ages and later where “eye-witnesses” tell of men with no heads but faces in their torsos, sea monsters, and other fantastic creatures.
2. Let us say that Paul did actually meet Peter and James, both of whom knew Jesus. Just because the disciples told Paul a story does not mean that the resurrection of Jesus was a historical, physical fact. In fact, the references to this meeting (Galatians 1 and 2 and Acts 15) do not mention the resurrection at all, or indeed any particular part of Jesus' life. Paul was already a preacher and had been for a while, so apparently he heard whatever he knew of Jesus from other people already. In Galatians he reports that he stayed with Cephas (Peter) and met James, then he called Cephas/Peter out for caving in on the issue of circumcision of Gentiles. The mention of Paul and the Jerusalem church in Acts 15, which mentions James, is also about the circumcision controversy, not about the resurrection. It’s entirely possible they talked about such things, but there is no evidence for it.
3. “An educated, Jewish scholar, in charge of rounding up heretics, traveling on a road with escorts, in pursuit of more Christians to kill? Possible? Sure. Probable? Not likely!” Still not proof of anything except a personal experience. Lots of people have had their lives changed, sometimes suddenly, in improbable ways. Who knows how long Paul had been exposed to Christian ideas and teachings? Who knows how he might have been struggling with what he was doing? Even if the transmission of this story is fairly clean, Paul himself may have exaggerated how sudden or complete the conversion was so that it would be a better story to help convert others. And again, lots of people have religious experiences, up to and including visions and auditory hallucinations – even educated people who say they were originally hostile to the beliefs they later embraced.
4. “If Jesus had just recently been executed, how did the Christians fabricate his “resurrection” so well, that Jews who would never in their lives dream that their Messiah would be nailed to a tree as a criminal, would convert to this ‘cult’[?]” People do strange things all the time in the name of religion and believe all kinds of strange things. Why did people follow Jim Jones all the way to the Kool Aid? What about the Branch Dravidians, Heaven’s Gate, or the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? It seems that most of the early Jewish Christians were from the lower classes, the little people, and Jesus’ teachings were certainly attractive to the oppressed and poor, through some educated Jews obviously also converted (e.g., Paul). And why would the resurrection be so hard to believe back then? People back then believed in wizards and witches and all manner of things we no longer believe in, especially less-educated people, who tend to be more superstitous. A few people claim to have found an empty tomb or had a vision of Jesus, or heard from someone else that they saw Jesus, and it’s not all that hard to believe that people in search of answers and freedom from oppression might believe. And remember how things get exaggerated, tweaked, and altered in both oral and written traditions as stories are told again and again, especially from a biased (i.e., pro-Christian) point of view.
(to be continued)
LikeLike
5. “You are wrong: The high priests in Jerusalem began to actively persecute and execute Christians very shortly after Jesus' execution.” I apologize for my incomplete research on this front; for some reason I only investigated the Roman persecutions, and even there I was inaccurate, because there might have been some first-generation Christians caught up in Nero’s brutality. Still, even the Jewish persecution of Christians is not proof of anything except the strength of some people’s belief, and as I have already shown, people will believe a lot of things, even preposterous things, and even unto death.
6. “I am not familiar with these two stories. Were any of the eye witnesses of these events willing to be killed as testimony that the event really occurred?” Willingness to die for a belief is compelling, but it’s not proof of anything. I was just using these stories as an example of how legends might change over time and to speculate how they get started. The Buddha was an actual historical person, so many of the stories surrounding him probably went through contortions, revisions, proof-texting, and exaggerations similar to what the Christian story went through.
In the end it seems that your “proof” that the resurrection was a physical, historical fact rests on two assumptions: 1) that there were eye-witnesses who had no good reason to lie about what they experienced, and 2) that people would not be willing to die for a “false” religion (with a minor sub-proof of “why would they believe at all?”). I believe I have given plenty of examples of people who would, in fact, die for beliefs no one else gives credence to, and as for the first point, even if the “eye-witnesses” didn’t outright lie (and that is always a possibility, regardless of your assertion, because people lie all the time for any number of reasons, such as to obtain power or glory, to avoid embarrassment, to convince others, etc.), the gap in translation between the alleged events and earliest extant manuscripts – to say nothing of the differences between the accounts in the gospels and the fact that there are no contemporaneous, disinterested accounts of a bodily resurrection – leave a serious amount of room for exaggeration, mistranslation, faulty transmission, and other errors.
These are essentially the same arguments you made the first time, and, apart from pointing out my omission on the persecution topic, have given me no new information and thus have not changed my mind.
You might be interested in this link, as it touches on many of the same arguments that I’ve made, only from someone with much more expert knowledge than I have and with lots of footnotes. http://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/
As I doubt you have anything new to say on this subject, I will bid you farewell. I appreciate your civility, even if I can’t agree with you.
LikeLike
Point #8: Jesus' teachings were enough for the Jewish leaders to want him dead. Why do you think they stopped with him?
LikeLike
Point 1: The fact that several different writers tell the same basic facts but with discrepancies in the details, to me, is MORE evidence of veracity, than if they were completely harmonized. They are telling the stories from their best recollection. The discrepancies in the details do not change the basic facts.
LikeLike
Point 2: If you meet two persons who said that they had seen, touched, and eaten with a resurrected dead person, the person who you believe to be God, what do you think would be the FIRST thing you would want to talk about when you meet them? The weather? Sports?
Does the Bible really have to spell that out?
LikeLike
Point 3: Possible, but highly unlikely.
Again, we Christians do not have a video tape of the Resurrection or Christ's appearance to Saul/Paul. All we have are testimonies by Paul, Peter, Matthew, and John, and second person testimony from Luke, Mark, Polycarp, and others.
I will never be able to give you “the smoking gun”. Each human being must weigh the circumstantial evidence and make a decision for himself/herself.
LikeLike
Point 4: very good arguments.
Yes, people in oppression are more likely to turn even to the most bizarre chance of obtaining hope and liberation. However, those who say that they saw Christ, not individually, but as a group, and touched him, and ate with him, would have to be completely MAD to suffer torture and persecution for such a preposterous story that they know for a FACT is a lie.
Bottom line: is there enough credible testimony for the truth of the Resurrection or not? Again, there is no video-tape.
LikeLike
Point 5: Yes, some people will believe anything. But at least eleven men said that they saw a resurrected dead man walk through a locked door; they touched him; they touched the nail holes and the gash in the side from the sword; then they ate with him.
Then many of these people were willing to die for this testimony. Dagood alleges that Peter died because he told wealthy Roman women not to have sex with their husbands. If this is true, why did he say such a thing? He said it because he believed that Jesus of Nazareth had come back from the dead and was God! Both Peter and Paul were willing to die for their testimony of seeing a resurrected Jesus, and in Peter's case he touched the resurrected dead man.
LikeLike
And I appreciate your civility, Kat.
This is how atheists/agnostics and Christians should discuss these issues, with civility. However, any Christian who refrains from warning unbelievers of the consequences of unbelief is doing you a great disfavor…if of course, what we believe is true.
It would be like me knowing that your house is going to explode in a ball of fire at midnight tonight, but out of not wanting to upset you, I sit at home and watch television while you and your family burn. That is how serious this issue is for us.
I realize that many atheists/agnostics believe that this is silly superstition, but it is our very, very sincere belief.
LikeLike
Gary,
1) We don’t know what, precisely, early Christians indicated about Jesus. Whether Son of God, whether physically resurrected, what he said, what he did, etc. This is why I warned about precision in evidence.
2) Each religion has its own unique flavor. What other Christian sect stated Jesus visited Mesoamerica? Must be Mormonism is true! What other sect indicates souls were trapped in volcanoes? Must be Scientology is true! Simply pointing out, “My religion is unique because it is the only one that _____” is ironic because every other religion makes similar claims!
3) If it was so outlandish, why would the Hebrew leaders bother to persecute it, or demonstrate it false? Like claiming your neighbor’s dog is God. One doesn’t start arguing why Rover can’t be god—they simply laugh and walk away. “You think Jesus is God? Bwahahaha…” “You think Jesus was the Messiah, but didn’t establish a kingdom of peace? Bwahahahaha…”
The Romans killed Jesus–he was crucified.
LikeLike
4) Odd, then, Paul never mentioned a single sermon, snippet or parable of Jesus. Not one. Not a single miracle. Not a single incident in Jesus’ life other than the Eucharist. Not his birth, not his hometown, not his ministry….nothing.
Odd, too, Paul lists a post-resurrection appearance to Peter, an appearance to the Twelve, to the 500, to James and to all the apostles…all unlisted in any canonical gospel except a possible reference to the Peterine appearance in Luke and possibly the apostles in Acts. Odd how Paul never lists the appearance to the women, Mary Magdalene, the Eleven in Galilee, the Eleven (ten) in Jerusalem, the Eleven in Jerusalem, the fishermen in Galilee or the two on their way to Emmaus.
Paul lists numerous appearances not listed in the canonical Gospels; the Gospels list numerous appearances not listed by Paul. Paul never mentions Jesus life in any way (except the Eucharist); the Gospels list numerous miracles, sermons, parables, stories, and interactions.
Yet you want to argue they talked about everything they knew, saw or heard about Jesus. If they did—no one seemed interested in writing about it afterward!
6) Says Acts of the Apostles. *shrug* Are you saying Acts of the Apostles is wrong in describing Paul’s Damascus road encounter? How familiar are you with ancient Mediterranean culture and Altered States of Consciousness?
6) James’ death is first recorded in Josephus. Ananus had to falsify a charge James was breaking Mosaic law. Clearly James followed Mosaic Law, or Ananus wouldn’t have to falsify it, right? Ananus killed James as a demonstration of power. Not for any Christian belief. Only later legendary stories began to attach Christianity to James’ death. Sources: Josephus, 2nd Apocalypse of James, Clement of Alexandria, Hegesippus.
Acts of Peter (150 – 200 CE) is the first record of Peter’s martyrdom. The vast majority of Christians have never read it. It states Peter was sentenced to death by governmental officials because Peter was convincing the official’s wives and concubines to abstain from sex with their husbands & lovers. Sources: John, 2 Peter, 1 Clement, Acts of Peter (see also Acts of Paul), Tertullian. Eusebius.
7) Because first century bios is not 21st century demand for straight stories, conformity, and inerrancy. As long as you try to fit these documents into current culture, you will never understand. As long as you fail to understand the 1st century genres, you will continue to make mistakes and insufficient argument to those of us who actually do research the topic. Only in the 2nd Century do we see Christian attempts to conform the various claims.
8) Again, let’s be precise about our evidence. Self-serving Christian documents written 40+ years after Jesus’ death claim the Hebrew leadership wanted Jesus dead. I have no independent evidence the priests started with Jesus, let alone stop with him. Again, Jesus was crucified, an exclusive Roman execution.
LikeLike
Also, consider why this post is drawing so many antagonistic comments. Because the subject of the post is built on the fact that Jesus Christ Is the foundation of the Church.
Pretty much proving Jesus' words that He is, in fact, hated.
LikeLike
Yes, I know that the Romans killed Jesus, but why did they kill Jesus? Doesn't Josephus, a Jewish Roman, tells us that the Romans killed Jesus because the Jewish religious leaders wanted him dead?
If what Jesus was saying was upsetting enough for the Jewish authorities to want him dead, then isn't it highly likely that the Jewish leaders would want persons making the same upsetting claims to be “eliminated” also?
I'm never going to be able to give you the “smoking gun”, Dagood.
I am arguing for a preponderance of circumstantial evidence to convince me or you that it is very probable that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, justifying placing our faith in him as God. I am not trying to accumulate enough evidence to convince a jury to send someone to prison.
LikeLike
“Odd, then, Paul never mentioned a single sermon, snippet or parable of Jesus. Not one. Not a single miracle. Not a single incident in Jesus’ life other than the Eucharist. Not his birth, not his hometown, not his ministry….nothing.”
Dagood, let's say that I have known you as a friend for several years. Over the years I have probably written several dozen letters (emails) to you. One hundred years later, some one finds three of my letters to you.
The people who find my three letters to you are shocked that not once do I mention how I met you, say anything about the fact that either of us have a wife and children, discuss any details of our birth or childhood, etc. etc…
Do you get my point? Paul was writing about specific issues in established churches, who are already very familiar with the story of Jesus. Why is it strange that he doesn't review all this history? Because just as in my three letters to you, that was not the purpose of the letters.
LikeLike
Here is an excerpt from an article I found on this subject:
Is it true that Paul only mentioned Jesus “occasionally” and never referred to Him as a flesh and blood human being? Certainly not. In fact, it is amazing that Harpur could make such an outlandish, unscriptural claim and still have his book published by anyone familiar in the least with Paul’s writings.
The fact of the matter is Paul often spoke of Jesus in terms that cannot be understood correctly in any way other than as a historical, flesh-and-blood human being. Paul used the name “Jesus” 218 times in his writings (Strong, 2001, p. 453), not counting other names for Jesus like Christ or Lord. For Harpur to say Paul “occasionally” mentioned Jesus is outright dishonesty. Paul used the name Jesus five times in the first eight verses of Romans, seven times in the single-chapter book of Philemon, and 22 times in the brief, four-chapter book of Philippians. An honest account of Paul’s writings shows that they are replete with Jesus’ name, containing it an average of two and a half times per chapter.
Not only did Paul repeatedly mention Jesus, but he specifically stressed that Jesus had come in the flesh as a real human being. For instance, in 1 Timothy 2:5, Paul wrote: “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.” To elucidate what he meant by the word “man,” Paul wrote in Philippians 2:5:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (emp. added).
Any attempt to turn Paul’s phrase “in the likeness of men” into some sort of spiritual, mystical appearance is doomed to failure. Furthermore, Paul more specifically mentioned that “the likeness of men” that he discussed in Philippians meant human flesh. Paul wrote to the Romans about “Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3, emp. added). The apostle further mentioned in 1 Timothy 6:13 that Jesus “witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate” (emp. added).
LikeLike
(continued)
Harpur’s major contention is that Paul did not mention details about Jesus’ life such as His birthplace in Bethlehem, His mother’s name, or His specific miracles. Yet, if the guiding hand of God produced the New Testament documents, it makes perfect sense that such information would not be repeated in Paul’s writings, since it was so thoroughly documented in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In truth, the fact that Paul repeatedly alludes to Jesus in the flesh, but does not reiterate the various details of the gospel accounts, shows that Paul coincides with the Gospel writers, but was independent of them as well. Why would God need to record for the fifth time the various miracles and facts about Jesus’ life in the writings of Paul? Paul consistently dealt with many of the events in Jesus’ life such as His death, burial, resurrection, trial before Pilate, birth according to the seed of David, and the overarching fact that He took on the form of a human. Harpur’s complaint that Paul did not mention enough of the details that are recorded in the gospel accounts is a criterion that he and his fellow skeptics have arbitrarily chosen and that proves nothing.
Harpur’s false assertion that “Paul was a mystic, and he knew only the mystical Christos, Christ not ‘after the flesh’ but after the spirit” (p. 172) lacks scholarly integrity and biblical foundation. The obvious truth is that Paul saturated his writings with the name of Jesus and repeatedly stressed that Jesus had come in the flesh as a historical human being. The details he left out of his writings accord perfectly with what one would expect from divine inspiration, and show that, while he acknowledged the historical Jesus, his writings serve as testimony independent of the gospel accounts.
REFERENCES
Harpur, Tom (2004), The Pagan Christ (New York: Walker).
Strong, James (2001 reprint), The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Nelson).
LikeLike
Gary,
“It would be like me knowing that your house is going to explode in a ball of fire at midnight tonight, but out of not wanting to upset you, I sit at home and watch television while you and your family burn. That is how serious this issue is for us.”
And here you get to where the issue is for me: I did not leave Christianity because of Biblical errors or discrepancies, or because no one could “prove” the resurrection to me, but because of its message. Jesus said many wonderful and wise things, but the thrust of most Christian teaching is not Jesus' “Love thy neighbor,” but Paul's “there is none righteous, no, not one.” The message you will hear, ultimately, in every Christian church (except a Universalist one) is “believe what we believe or go to hell to be tortured for eternity.”
This is the message of love and forgiveness God has for us? No matter what we do in life, no matter what we believe, if we don't get this one thing right, it's unending suffering for us? Even if we never hear of Jesus, or hear a faulty version or hear it from a source so vile we can't believe it? How is this proof of a loving, just God?
There is no need for you to explain to me about Original Sin (not an original doctrine, by the way) or that God cannot permit sin in his presence (why not? if God is omnipotent, he can do anything he wants): I have been there, and I have done that. If there is a supreme being so petty that he demands we believe a miraculous story, unattested to by independent, disinterested witnesses, in order to escape eternal pain and suffering, then he does not deserve my worship.
As it happens, I see no reason to believe that any god exists, much less this or that particular one, so what I am rejecting is not Yahweh but the idea, the “inerrant message” as you might put it, of Christianity: not the message of loving your neighbors and helping the poor and oppressed, but the apparently more important (to most Christians) message of exclusivity, punishment, and injustice.
I could answer your answers, especially your reply to Point 2, but you will just reply with the same arguments again, and I don’t think either of us needs that. You have done your job in warning me of a fireball I don’t believe in. Be at peace.
Kat
LikeLike
” then he does not deserve my worship.”
After leaving fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity in my mid 20's I had the exact same feelings. “God is a vindictive, angry monster. How can he be loving if he sends people to hell to suffer in eternal torment. Who deserves that kind of punishment? Hitler and Stalin, yes, but most everyone else, no.
What I finally had to decide is this: Is the Christian God real or not? If Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then that is proof enough for me that he is God.
So if he is God, then “what he says goes”. I can do what he says, or I can curse him for being a monster and pay the consequences. So my options are these:
1. Believe in Jesus Christ as God…my God. Ask God to forgive me of disobeying him and “doing my own thing”. Obey his command to be baptized. Live a life of obeying God and loving and treating my neighbor as myself. When I die, I will spend the next quadrillion years enjoying heaven free of pain, illness, sadness or death.
2. I can curse God because he is unfair, unjust, and vindictive. Live my life as I please for another 30-40 years. Die. Then spend the next quadrillion years in hell suffering terrible torment day in and day out.
If God IS true, then which option would any sensible person take? Is it really worth “cutting off your nose to spite your face” with such disastrous consequences for making the wrong decision?
Is submitting to God's will so onerous that you are willing to risk being wrong, and as a result, suffering the consequences of eternal punishment in hell?
That is the decision each on of us has to make. Whether God is nice or not nice really doesn't matter if he really is the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, “what he says goes”.
LikeLike
Kat and anyone else: I came across an article that presents, what I believe to be, very strong evidence for the Resurrection. Check it out and let me know what you think:
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2014/02/excellent-evidence-for-literal.html
LikeLike
Below is a link to the best article I have found (yet) that gives strong evidence for the Resurrection:
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2014/02/excellent-evidence-for-literal.html
LikeLike
One thing you may (or may not), Kat, find interesting is this: Orthodox Christians (Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and some Anglicans) have a very different view of God than do Evangelical Christians.
Evangelicals tend to view God as: your buddy, your best friend, your pal, (your therapist?). So when you are down—you go to your buddy for emotional and spiritual support.
So what happens when your buddy, who is supposed to always be there for you when you need him, doesn't seem to be available for you (you don't FEEL his presence inside your heart) or he doesn't seem to be listening to you? You become very disappointed; you feel abandoned; you get angry…and sometimes you feel so abandoned, betrayed, and angry that you doubt or even deny that He exists.
This is a foreign concept to orthodox Christians. To us, God is the Almighty King. He is to be obeyed. Period. He is to be obeyed whether we think he is a nice king or a mean king; whether we feel that we love him or not; whether we “feel” his presence or don't; whether we feel his is looking out for us or not.
Obedience is the rule of faith for we orthodox, not the presence of a warm, fuzzy feeling “in our hearts” which we assume is God. Our definition of faith is ABIDING trust in the promises of a resurrected Jesus Christ, Lord God, King of Heaven and Earth.
LikeLike
Gary, you are arguing, again, from a premise I do not concede as true – that the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact – so we are just running in circles, now. Furthermore, Pascal's Wager is a fallacy, no matter how it's worded.
You examined the “evidence” for the resurrection and found it sufficient. You therefore believe not only in a god, but specifically in the God of Judaism and Christianity. I have examined Christianity as a whole, including the evidence for the resurrection, and found it insufficient. In looking around the world, I see no reason to believe in a supreme being of any description, much less in a vindictive, arbitrary, inconsistent god like Jehovah. Because I don’t believe, I cannot believe. I can’t just make myself believe in a particular religion just so I can avoid a hideous fate that I don’t believe will happen. And even if I could, which one should I pick? Christianity (which brand)? Islam? Jainism? Dianetics?
Please understand, once and for all: I do not even believe in the concept of “god.” I see no evidence for one, anywhere, so I live as if there is none. (Sure there may be some Supreme Being or First Principle out there, but if there is, it must be so vastly beyond my understanding that it cannot possibly care what I think about it.) In many ways, I try to do as Jesus (and the Buddha, and many other sage people) taught: to be kind, to be non-judgmental, to help those I can. I don’t need any god to tell me what’s right nor the threat of punishment to make me do it; I figured it out on my own.
I read your link, because I gave you one (though I have no idea if you’ve read mine). As usual, the author is basically begging the question and making arguments based on non-verifiable assumptions. I was especially annoyed by her/his proud assertion that the argument did not rest on believing the Bible was true and then arguing on that very basis in almost every case. Also, like you, the author has a very naïve view of human motives to think that no one would ever believe something not true or that no one would ever lie or exaggerate stories about Jesus. (Elvis sightings, anyone?) About the only parts of the article that I could agree with were 1) that it was unlikely that, if Jesus were crucified, that they’d take him down when he was still alive, and 2) that the apostles did not set out to deliberately create a new mythology. And no, I will not refute it point by point. I’ve already spent far too much time on this.
By the way, if you were saving “the best for last,” I’m afraid that backfired. Although I find the “Buddy Jesus” concept to be a bit theologically immature, your description of the orthodox attitude towards God is even less appealing, if that is possible. “To us, God is the Almighty King. He is to be obeyed. Period. He is to be obeyed whether we think he is a nice king or a mean king; whether we feel that we love him or not; whether we “feel” his presence or don't; whether we feel [he] is looking out for us or not.” That sounds like a case of Stockholm Syndrome to me, frankly, though it at least is more consistent with how one would need to behave towards the god of the Torah and Revelation. Again, if god created the universe in such a manner that the only way a human being – no matter how she/he lived her/his life –could escape the eternal torments of hell (why did he even create hell? WTF?) was to believe the correct version of an unverifiable and frankly un-credible story that wasn’t even recorded by non-biased witnesses at the time it happened, then he’s a sadistic monster who doesn’t deserve any worship.
Seriously: end of story, as far as I’m concerned. Unless you have video, I’m done here.
LikeLike
I hear, you, Kat. I felt the same way. The Christian God seemed to me to be a vindictive, self-absorbed jerk. Who deserves to burn for all eternity?? What sick-o would create such a place?
If you or anyone else can convince me that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, then to me, the rest of Christianity (and Judaism) crumbles into the dust. I would never CHOOSE Christianity if I had a choice. I would be a Buddhist or just a humanist.
The problem is, I'm still convinced Jesus of Nazareth DID come back from the dead, and if he did, he has proven, at least to me, that he is God and whether I like it or not, I must submit to his rule…or perish.
LikeLike
Gary,
If you are not being disingenuous just to draw me back into this debate, then I certainly do pity you, but after reading many of your entries over the weekend I can't help but wonder if you somehow need to have some rigid, external authority imposed on your life. Why else would you solve the problem of theodicy by accepting and bowing before the sadist-god? Why else could you ignore logic, common-sense – even a basic understanding of human psychology – in order to believe the flimsy, purely circumstantial “evidence” for the resurrection you have presented here?
I can’t prove the resurrection didn’t happen any more than you can prove it did, but then, I don’t have to; if someone is going to make a claim outside of nature and common experience (a miracle, in other words), the burden of proof is on them. All I can do is point out where the pro-resurrection argument is weak or based on false or unverifiable assumptions, and I think I’ve done that. If you believe, then, in spite of the rules of rational argument, in spite your reservations about YHWH, you must want to believe, and there’s nothing I, nor anyone else, can do about that.
Good luck,
Kat
LikeLike
You are right, Kat. I do have a bias. I very much want to believe in the story of Jesus, so I am not a neutral, unbiased third party looking dispassionately at the evidence. I am an orthodox Christian who very much wants to believe that the belief system upon which I have built my life and that of my children is true.
However, I will not follow the Christian belief system by blind faith. There must be SOME evidence to support it. If you have followed my recent posts you have seen me drop my belief (which I learned as a Baptist fundamentalist) that the Bible is inerrant on all issues, including history and science, and that the Bible cannot contain true contradictions between parallel accounts in different books of the Bible.
If someone can show me solid evidence that there was a conspiracy to perpetuate the story of the Resurrection, I would stop being a Christian. Until that day, I believe that there is enough circumstantial evidence to believe.
And if I am wrong, what are the consequences? None.
All that the Christian faith asks of someone is to believe in Jesus as God, be baptized, and then to live a life of being kind and helping your neighbors. How bad is that? It's not like they ask for your first born child.
I know that the “mean God” part of the Bible is unpleasant, but the cost to be on the “good God” team is minimal.
LikeLike
A lot of false assumptions. Again. It's obvious you aren't really listening to me.
1) I never said Christianity was a conspiracy. (Personally, I don't think it is, though anything's possible.) I think Christianity is based on civil/spiritual unrest in a particular time and place, and that its spread was fed by a 1st-century propensity to superstition as well as by exaggeration, mistranslation, errors of transmission, and wishful thinking. If it takes an out-and-out conspiracy to allow you to leave Christianity, however, then you're probably stuck.
2) When will you people get it? Pascal's Wager is meaningless: I can't force myself to believe something just because I want to. Dangling the carrot of heaven or brandishing the stick of hell will not help, either, since I don't believe either one of these places exists. Give it up already!
3) ” I would never CHOOSE Christianity if I had a choice. I would be a Buddhist or just a humanist.”
versus
“… I am not a neutral, unbiased third party looking dispassionately at the evidence. I am an orthodox Christian who very much wants to believe that the belief system upon which I have built my life and that of my children is true.”
So, which one is it?
4) “It's not like they ask for your first born child.” No, but you’d probably ask me to believe that the only way homosexuals are going to avoid hell is to become straight or celibate. Or ask me to believe that women can’t have control over their own bodies. Or that a fetus becomes fully human at the 12th week, or the 6th, or at conception, or at some other completely arbitrary point. That sex outside of a heterosexual marriage is evil, no matter what. That I am a depraved, filthy sinner who deserves to burn for eternity unless I get baptized and believe. All of which I can’t and won’t do, even if Pascal’s Wager wasn’t just so much taurine excrement (see above).
It's obvious you're just keeping me here in hopes I will relent and buy what you're selling. Since I’ve answered your “proofs” for the resurrection (which you hold to the ridiculous and unprecedented standard of “I’m forced to believe in the supernatural unless someone can prove a negative”), you’re reduced to playing the “believe just to be safe” card while pretending to understand me. Bah. I appreciate that you haven’t resorted to name-calling, but I don’t appreciate being jerked around just so you can cut another notch in your catechism. Good bye.
LikeLike
What is up with you atheists?? I thought we were having a discussion.
I'm not trying to “save” you. Lutherans believe in “predestination” so we don't “arm wrestle” people to “accept” Jesus. God does the saving, not us.
If you are interested in discussing these issues, great. let's talk, but do me a favor and drop the suspicion and paranoia. Don't do a “Bruce G.” on me, please.
LikeLike
(I can't believe I'm doing this.)
The discussion portion of our conversation ended a few posts ago, when I said I was not interested in talking about the “evidence” for the resurrection anymore. We might> have had a discussion about theodicy, but you don't really seem interested; your belief in the historicity of a bodily resurrection has apparently made that question moot.
Instead, you simply confessed that you had doubts before, but that now you believe, and then you lobbed a couple salvos of Pascal’s Wager at me, which, by the way, is not a point of discussion, but a tool for evangelism:
“If God IS true, then which option would any sensible person take? Is it really worth “cutting off your nose to spite your face” with such disastrous consequences for making the wrong decision?
“Is submitting to God's will so onerous that you are willing to risk being wrong, and as a result, suffering the consequences of eternal punishment in hell?” Gary, Feb 27
“All that the Christian faith asks of someone is to believe in Jesus as God, be baptized, and then to live a life of being kind and helping your neighbors. How bad is that? It's not like they ask for your first born child.
“I know that the “mean God” part of the Bible is unpleasant, but the cost to be on the “good God” team is minimal.” Gary, March 3 (My emphasis throughout.)
You did not answer my objections to Pascal’s Wager, nor my questions on what else Christianity would ask of me besides faith and baptism, such as betraying my own integrity when it came to things such as gay rights, women’s rights, the freedom of consenting adults, etc. What else is there, then, to “discuss”?
And as for your contention that Lutherans “don't ‘arm wrestle’ people to ‘accept’ Jesus,” why the harping on Pascal’s Wager, then? What about your own post on the Great Commision (http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2012/03/have-lutherans-abdicated-great.html)? If you’re not trying to convince me, who are you trying to convince? Yourself?
If you are not trying to evangelize me, why are you trying to drag this out even now that the real discussion is over? What do you hope to accomplish?
LikeLike
Hi Kat,
Thank you for the comment. I have recently (just in the last few days) re-assessed my approach to discussing Christianity with non-believers and ex-Christians. I no longer intend to try and convince anyone of the “evidence” of the Resurrection or the validity of the Christian religion. There is no evidence. It is all based on testimony of people who had a motive to believe that they saw a dead man come back from the grave. I now believe that it is a waste of time for Christians to debate the merits of Christianity. The Christian religion is based on a belief in the Supernatural. You either believe in the supernatural or you don't. By definition, there is no evidence for something that defies the laws of science, reason, and logic.
Check out how I came to this view by reading my new post below and the one that follows. By the way, I owe this new view to you, Dagood, and most of all, Bruce Gerencser:
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2014/03/my-review-of-jesus-interrupted-by-bart.html
LikeLike
And this one:
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2014/03/sharing-my-faith-with-non-believers-and.html
LikeLike
Gary,
I'm glad you made your peace with this topic. I'm impressed you made it all the way through Ehrman's book — I know when I was a believer, I avoided all questions and doubts out of absolute terror. (Until St. Paul started to seriously piss me off, anyway. Like Bruce, I found that it was the Bible itself that turned me away, at least initially.) You have been honest in your search for truth, and even if I don't agree with your conclusions, I can certainly respect the search.
Whatever makes you happy, whatever makes you care about others. Go in Peace.
LikeLike
I wish you the very best also, Kat.
LikeLike