My friend's waterpipes burst last night and he's still tied up in this. I have the nightmare of MOT, insurance and car maintenance coming up, the floor needs cutting back and lacquering, the new kitchen cupboards are on their way and so on and so on.All I'm saying is that the existence [or not] of our Maker is not the uppermost concern just now. And yet I'm peeved by something - misrepresentation. Just as I'm concerned about not misrepresenting a particular blogger as BNP, I resent the misrepresentation of Christianity. I really do.
Read it through and decide against it - fine. Look at the philosophical aspects and reject them - fine.
But please don't look at the Crusades, the Religious Right, the
It's not.
If there's one thing that sticks in the craw of the opposition it's the redemptive nature of Christianity, the rebirth. No matter how far someone has slid - he or she can always be brought back and not through some Molochian fire ritual but in reality.
It's a living thing. I came back.
The second immensely powerful aspect is its social code, as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the gospels. For example, turning to the Pharisees who were following Him about, He asked:
And I will ask you one thing - is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil? To save life or destroy it? And looking round about upon them all, he then turned to the man and said: "Stretch out your hand."
Later, in a similar situation, He asked:
Which of you, if his ox falls in the ditch, will not pull him out on the sabbath day? You hypocrites.
He wasn't above the odd bit of invective. He set the cat among the pigeons. For me there is no religion here. There is sheer common sense from a man who knew what he was about, who must have been personable to get the following he did and who cared nothing for consequences. He cared about exploding hypocrisy and went around healing people. There were no Jonestown or Manson sexual orgies.
To not feel the power of such an individual, when we can feel the power of an Augustus, Julius, Alexander, Dr. Livingstone or Mother Theresa is sheer wilfulness.
For crying out loud, if such a person was doing this today and it became clear he didn't give a toss about taking over the government, he'd be in the Beckam [formerly Beatles] class of hero-worship.
To me He's one cool dude. And yet people will admit other documents of the time as authentic but go hell-for-leather to debunk these equally historical documents. So what if they're derivative? To be derivative, they must have been derived from something equally historic. Come on! Get real.
Have a lovely Sunday.
James I admire your faith- but I don't have faith- can I just explain part of my attitude to Christianity. Firstly as to the documents you refer to- yes they are there- there are other documents as well the Gospels of Thomas or other texts but the main ones were written up to 100 hundred years after Christ's death. The first point I would make was that when you look say at Tacitus's Annals which are about the same time away from teh reigns he describes as the Bible- the point is that Tacitus is making historical claims about tyranny. The claim in the Bible is the most extraordinary claim that you could make that a man was God and that he returned from death to life- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to back them up.
ReplyDeleteWhen I refer to Christianity- I am referring to one of three things- firstly to a historical set of beliefs connected to the Bible that has gone back in various ways to the moment of Christ's death and still endures in different varieties to the present day. Secondly I refer to those different varieties as they exist today. Thirdly I refer to philosophies derived from the Bible and those different varieties of faith. I am not neccessarily analysing your faith if your faith doesn't fit in the structures of the faith that I am analysing for the purpose of that argument.
I thought that worth explaining.
Tiberius - this is unnecdessarily complicating somehting which needs not be complicated. Just because it makes extraordinary claims does not exclude it as a historical document and much can be gleaned about that period of time through the document.
ReplyDeleteOne real issue is whether at least one of them was written before AD 70 and the weight of scholastic evidence suggests there is no other conclusion.
Even if Mark was written later, it still doesn't negate it - it just makes it more difficult to convince doubting Thomases.
The second real issue is that people are rejecting it for its extraordinary claims, based on a desire not to believe, rather than any concrete historical reason.
It's a bit like the opposition claim that he changed the nature of the water in Nairobi. I say why not? there were witnesses and if he is the opposition, then he would certainly have such powers.
Why the determination not to accept that there are non-temporal forces? There is a whole body of phenomena over the millennia to suggest that there are non-temporal forces indeed.
So why can the Christ not be the Christ? Becasue there is an interested party determined to pour scorn on the idea for the simple reason that it negates him.
I think we humans, you and I, are in no position to judge the non-temporal. we philosophize and are high-sounding and learned but we in fact finally, definitively know nothing of this.
So all we can rely on is that which comes down to us. One of the things which comes down to us is that He was around 2000 years ago.
So? what's the big deal? I also believe the race of giants was around millennia earlier. Why not? Why couldn't they have been? Because I don't philosophically or psychologically like the idea?
There is documentation which say they existed.
You could answer me that the Australian aborigines claim the earth-mother. Why not? All I'm saying is that you are not and I am not in a position to judge.
What I do know is that those who avail themselves of the comforting power on offer are indeed comforted. None ahve ever said otherwise.
If you choose not to avail yourself of what is on offer, then that's your choice, as in a cafe.
Just because you don't choose the caffe latte, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. :)
I agre, I get very angry at the vilification of my own faith, Catholicism.
ReplyDeletePeople buy into all that rubbish about the Church believing the earth was flat, etc.
It annous me as an admirer of St Augustine and Tomas Aquinas, that the great advances in science, medicine, ophilosophy, etc that the church led the way in are ignored.
I'm also sick of pointing out that the Catholic church has supported eviolution since 1908 and the Big bang since 1953
"I show you doubt to prove that faith exists"
ReplyDelete- Browning, "Bishop Blougram's Apology"
It is strange, isn't it, the way people seem to go out of their way to disprove Christianity? As if it threatens them.
ReplyDeleteAnd they pick out every little loophole, every little contradiction, instead of seeing the big picture: the reason why.
Why is love seen as such a threat that has to be challenged? Because people haven't recognised it as love? Because they only see what they interpret as 'don't do this/that/the other'?
It's a mystery to me.