Figuring Out Religion

[curlew]

John Adams famously wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We seem to be hell-bent on testing his prescience.

Given that American participation in organized religion has been steadily declining, the importation of more devout people from Muslim countries is a good thing then, is it not?

[Mountaineer]

John Adams famously wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We seem to be hell-bent on testing his prescience.

Given that American participation in organized religion has been steadily declining, the importation of more devout people from Muslim countries is a good thing then, is it not?

I'm assuming you did not read the article, given your question? Did you notice the word Christian?

Regardless of who wins this presidential election, we are embarking on a new and frightening time for Christians in America. But the appeal of holiness, conscience, and, yes, moral purity is timeless. In any political dispensation—even and especially amid the coming persecution—we can do nothing better for ourselves, for our society, and for the Body of Christ than to pursue relentlessly that which is true, good, and beautiful. This is Christian hope, and it is the antidote for political despair.

[curlew]

John Adams famously wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We seem to be hell-bent on testing his prescience.

Given that American participation in organized religion has been steadily declining, the importation of more devout people from Muslim countries is a good thing then, is it not?

Did you notice the word Christian?

Not in the quote from John Adams which was what I was commenting on. (And I did read the article, BTW. I generally always do before making a comment).

[Mountaineer]

Given that American participation in organized religion has been steadily declining, the importation of more devout people from Muslim countries is a good thing then, is it not?

Did you notice the word Christian?

Not in the quote from John Adams which was what I was commenting on. (And I did read the article, BTW. I generally always do before making a comment).

I'm further guessing you are voting for Hillary? The democratic party play book seems to say to always take things out of context, never quote a whole passage when responding - only the parts you wish to cherry pick; divert, discredit, demonize the opponent, obfuscate, twist the truth? Then claim "oops, I'm sorry, I was commenting on this part" if called. Just saying ........

Peace bro, Jesus will come again to judge the sheep and goats. I sheepishly say, I have a free pass for the sake of what Jesus did on the cross for all who believe. Do you?

Further conversation is futile ......... as Jean-Luc might say.

[MachineGhost]

[curlew]

Did you notice the word Christian?

Not in the quote from John Adams which was what I was commenting on. (And I did read the article, BTW. I generally always do before making a comment).

I'm further guessing you are voting for Hillary? The democratic party play book seems to say to always take things out of context, never quote a whole passage when responding - only the parts you wish to cherry pick; divert, discredit, demonize the opponent, obfuscate, twist the truth? Then claim "oops, I'm sorry, I was commenting on this part" if called. Just saying ........

Peace bro, Jesus will come again to judge the sheep and goats. I sheepishly say, I have a free pass for the sake of what Jesus did on the cross for all who believe. Do you?

Further conversation is futile ......... as Jean-Luc might say.

Where did I say I was sorry?

I'm voting for Trump so I guess your discernment isn't as good as you think it is.

I do agree with your last statement but I wasn't trying to start a conversation as I know that this is completely pointless with you. Was just commenting on the quote from John Adams.

[Mountaineer]

NEW YORK, NY—In honor of the organization’s 100th birthday, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards announced Wednesday a bold new program, expanding a woman’s right to choose by offering a plethora of post-birth abortion services for fetuses from birth all the way up to eighteen months old.

“A woman should be able to determine her own destiny,” a smiling Richards told reporters. “That’s why we’re now allowing women to bring in any clump of cells younger than eighteen months, and they can count on us to be their advocate and take care of the problem right away.”

http://babylonbee.com/news/planned-pare ... -services/

[MachineGhost]

Well, who said True Believers didnt have a sense of humor?

[Mountaineer]

Well, who said True Believers didnt have a sense of humor?

MG, you need to meet more traditional confessional Lutherans. Humor, smoke, drink, even the occasional shit, piss, and damn [insert shocked factor expression here]...... It's those judgemental fundamental fuddy duddies that you need to beware of. The ones that tell you how to live your life [via man made rules of course vs. God inspired truth] and never admitting they don't have perfect little families from Pleasantville.

[MachineGhost]

Bestselling author Michael Shermer's exploration of science and morality that demonstrates how the scientific way of thinking has made people, and society as a whole, more moral.

From Galileo and Newton to Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King, Jr., thinkers throughout history have consciously employed scientific techniques to better understand the non-physical world. The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment led theorists to apply scientific reasoning to the non-scientific disciplines of politics, economics, and moral philosophy. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected bodies in old medical texts, physicians opened bodies themselves to see what was there; instead of divining truth through the authority of an ancient holy book or philosophical treatise, people began to explore the book of nature for themselves through travel and exploration; instead of the supernatural belief in the divine right of kings, people employed a natural belief in the right of democracy.

In "The Moral Arc," Shermer will explain how abstract reasoning, rationality, empiricism, skepticism--scientific ways of thinking--have profoundly changed the way we perceive morality and, indeed, move us ever closer to a more just world.

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Arc-Scienc ... 250081327/

[Mountaineer]

Dr. Everett Piper, President - Oklahoma Wesleyan University

This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt “victimized” by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love. In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable.

I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic. Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims. Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them “feel bad” about themselves, is a “hater,” a “bigot,” an “oppressor,” and a “victimizer.”

I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen. <read more at the link>

http://www.okwu.edu/blog/2015/11/this-i ... niversity/

[MachineGhost]

That's not really religious, its common sense.

[MachineGhost]

Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily-dismissed “Christ of Faith” (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved.

Numerous secular scholars have presented their own versions of the so-called “Historical Jesus” – and most of them are, as biblical scholar J.D. Crossan puts it, “an academic embarrassment.” From Crossan’s view of Jesus as the wise sage, to Robert Eisenman’s Jesus the revolutionary, and Bart Ehrman’s apocalyptic prophet, about the only thing New Testament scholars seem to agree on is Jesus’ historical existence. But can even that be questioned?

The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources – which they also fail to identify. Filled with mythical and non-historical information, and heavily edited over time, the Gospels certainly should not convince critics to trust even the more mundane claims made therein.

The methods traditionally used to tease out rare nuggets of truth from the Gospels are dubious. The criterion of embarrassment says that if a section would be embarrassing for the author, it is more likely authentic. Unfortunately, given the diverse nature of Christianity and Judaism back then (things have not changed all that much), and the anonymity of the authors, it is impossible to determine what truly would be embarrassing or counter-intuitive, let alone if that might not serve some evangelistic purpose.

The criterion of Aramaic context is similarly unhelpful. Jesus and his closest followers were surely not the only Aramaic-speakers in first-century Judea. The criterion of multiple independent attestation can also hardly be used properly here, given that the sources clearly are not independent.

Paul’s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed. Avoiding Jesus’ earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus.” Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12).

Also important are the sources we don’t have. There are no existing eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus. All we have are later descriptions of Jesus’ life events by non-eyewitnesses, most of whom are obviously biased. Little can be gleaned from the few non-Biblical and non-Christian sources, with only Roman scholar Josephus and historian Tacitus having any reasonable claim to be writing about Jesus within 100 years of his life. And even those sparse accounts are shrouded in controversy, with disagreements over what parts have obviously been changed by Christian scribes (the manuscripts were preserved by Christians), the fact that both these authors were born after Jesus died (they would thus have probably received this information from Christians), and the oddity that centuries go by before Christian apologists start referencing them.

Agnosticism over the matter is already seemingly appropriate, and support for this position comes from independent historian Richard Carrier’s recent defense of another theory — namely, that the belief in Jesus started as the belief in a purely celestial being (who was killed by demons in an upper realm), who became historicized over time. To summarize Carrier’s 800-page tome, this theory and the traditional theory – that Jesus was a historical figure who became mythicized over time – both align well with the Gospels, which are later mixtures of obvious myth and what at least sounds historical.

The Pauline Epistles, however, overwhelmingly support the “celestial Jesus” theory, particularly with the passage indicating that demons killed Jesus, and would not have done so if they knew who he was (see: 1 Corinthians 2:6-10). Humans – the murderers according to the Gospels – of course would still have killed Jesus, knowing full well that his death results in their salvation, and the defeat of the evil spirits.

So what do the mainstream (and non-Christian) scholars say about all this? Surprisingly very little – of substance anyway. Only Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey have thoroughly attempted to prove Jesus’ historical existence in recent times. Their most decisive point? The Gospels can generally be trusted – after we ignore the many, many bits that are untrustworthy – because of the hypothetical (i.e. non-existent) sources behind them. Who produced these hypothetical sources? When? What did they say? Were they reliable? Were they intended to be accurate historical portrayals, enlightening allegories, or entertaining fictions?

Ehrman and Casey can’t tell you – and neither can any New Testament scholar. Given the poor state of the existing sources, and the atrocious methods used by mainstream Biblical historians, the matter will likely never be resolved. In sum, there are clearly good reasons to doubt Jesus’ historical existence – if not to think it outright improbable.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... t-hold-up/

[curlew]

Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists.

I haven't read anything by the author of that piece but I have read Richard Carrier, who is mentioned in the article, and also Robert Price on the subject. I generally like what both of them have to say about the historical reliability of the Christian witness but when they make the "mythicist" arguments they really start to lose me. Maybe I should give it more of a hearing before writing it off but the arguments just don't sound plausible and there are very few real scholars who agree with them (and I mean critical scholars who really look at the evidence and not Christians who are going to take every thing in the Bible at face value no matter what).

Bart Ehrman just finished a debate with Robert Price on the subject and has been discussing it on his blog. Unfortunately, they want money to listen to the debate but Bart has been posting some of his arguments. Below is one of them. Half of it was behind a paywall but I don't think he will mind if I reprint it along with a plug for his book, "Did Jesus Exist".

In my previous post I explained what ancient Jews who were expecting the messiah were expecting. I do not want to give the impression (one widely held today) that most Jews *were* expecting a messiah. My sense is that most ancient Jews didn’t spend much time thinking about the matter, any more than most Jews today do. But for those who did expect a messiah, there were certain expectations. In this post I want to explain why those expectations relate to the question about whether Jesus existed.

Recall: whatever the specifics of what this, that, or the other Jewish group thought, everyone thought the messiah would be a figure of grandeur and power, one who would be a mighty figure who would rule Israel, the people of God, as a sovereign people under no foreign oppression. The most popular view was that he would be a mighty military leader and political ruler who would overpower the enemy and set up a kingdom for Israel like that of his ancestor David of old. Another popular view is that he would not be a mere mortal but a divine cosmic judge of some kind who destroyed all God’s enemies before bringing in the kingdom. Some thought he would be a powerful priest who led his people through his forceful implementation of divine law based on his interpretations of the Torah.

What does this have to do with Jesus?

The earliest followers of Jesus were convinced that he was the messiah. How do we know? Because they called him this, repeatedly, constantly, all over the map. As I have explained, the word “messiah” comes from the Hebrew word for “anointed one.” In Greek, “messiah” gets translated as “christ.” So anyone who says Jesus Christ is saying Jesus the Messiah.

“Christ” was early and universally (by Christians) applied to Jesus. They called him the messiah so much that it became Jesus’ second name. You find this already in the writings of the New Testament – in fact, in our earliest author, Paul, who refers to him as Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, or just Christ, as a name. For Christians, Jesus was the messiah.

This claims is what made the Christian message both laughable and infuriating for non-Christian Jews. Most Jews knew full well that Jesus could not be the messiah. Jesus was just the opposite of what the messiah was supposed to be. The messiah was supposed to be the powerful ruler (earthly or heavenly) who destroyed God’s enemies and set up a kingdom on earth. Was that who Jesus was? Is that what Jesus did?

Precisely the opposite. Jesus was an obscure and virtually unknown rural preacher who was arrested as a criminal, humiliated, and tortured to death by the Roman authorities. It’s no wonder that most Jews found the Christian claims ludicrous.

And this is a powerful argument that the earliest Christians – all of them Jews – did not invent Jesus. They didn’t make him up. If they had made him up, a Jesus they called the Christ, they absolutely would not have made up a messiah who got crucified. That’s the opposite of what they would have made up. There were no Jews that we know of who expected that the messiah would suffer and die. If Christians were to make up a messiah, it would not be a crucified criminal. But Jesus was a crucified criminal. Whom his followers called the messiah. Rather than make the idea up they had to explain the idea away.

Christians spent considerable time and effort trying to convince fellow Jews that Jesus was the messiah despite the fact that he had been crucified. Paul claims this message was the major “stumbling block for the Jews” (1 Corinthians 1:23). It was the one thing that kept Jews from becoming followers of Jesus.

If the message of a crucified messiah is precisely the thing that made belief in Jesus impossible for Jews, then it is not a message that would have been made up to convince Jews. If you wanted to make up a Jesus who was the messiah, what would you say about him? Possibly that he is now sitting on the throne in Jerusalem ruling the Jewish people. Why didn’t anyone make that kind of Jesus up? Because everyone knew full well that there wasn’t a Jesus sitting on the throne in Jerusalem ruling his people. Everyone knew, in contrast, that Jesus was a crucified criminal. As a result, his followers had to reconcile their faith (Jesus is the messiah) with historical reality (he had been crucified).

The idea of a crucified messiah was NEW. It was an idea forced upon Christians by the clash between what they expected and what had happened. They didn’t invent the idea of Jesus. They invented the idea that the messiah was crucified.

In short, the fact that Jesus was completely unlike anything anyone expected of a messiah is a compelling proof that the man Jesus was not an invention of his early followers. He was a real person. Who was really crucified. His followers had to make sense of that as well as they could. And the result is Christianity.

[Mountaineer]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May we give thanks for the gifts of life, family, friends, shelter, food and a government that allows us to celebrate the day in peace with others; hopefully, most of us are able to enjoy all these gifts. Most of us are able to help those who may be missing some of those gifts. May we give thanks to the One who provides the gifts, including the gift of our willingness to help others less fortunate.

Psalm 118:24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Matthew 5:11 [Jesus said] “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

[Xan]

And my pug said, "Enjoy your family and friends at the feast that commands you to eat turkey and pie, just save some table scraps for me!"

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

For even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Maddy]

I recently came upon a book authored by a Catholic theologian who has come to understand Christianity within the conceptual framework of Buddhism. He does a good job, I think, of articulating how even the most fundamental mainstream Christian precepts concerning the nature of God and the meaning of salvation are susceptible to reinterpretation because our beliefs can never be more than a poorly defined attempt to reduce inherently unknowable things to constructs familiar to our own minds. I would think that this would resonate with a lot of the folks on this board who have been through the mainstream Christian thing and found it both pathetically illogical and experientially unsatisfying.

I've long thought that Christianity would look like something completely different if the Gospel was understood as it was originally taught by the historical Yeshua and as it was understood within the more esoteric sects of the first few centuries which, by virtue of their cloistered existence, remained largely uncorrupted by the political machinations that transformed mainstream Christianity into what it is today. I've heard it said that "Most people would be followers of Jesus if it weren't for the Christians." I think that's a pretty accurate appraisal.

I haven't yet read the book, but my interest was piqued by the following interview of the author, as well as some of the related things it led me to. I'd be curious to know what you all think--especially those who have all but given up on religion.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/double-b ... tian-faith

[lazyboy]

Maddy, I enjoyed that link. There's a deep connection and meaning underlying the apparent differences in religion. There have been several in the recent past and now more current Christian mystics who have developed a deep affinity for Buddhism. One of the first I read about is Thomas Merton.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/ ... e-buddhism

[Mountaineer]

Something for Christians to consider in regards to how they talk and write about President-elect Trump:

In Paul's letter to the Roman Christians, Martin Luther makes this comment, "In chapter 15 Paul sets up Christ as an example: we are to tolerate also those other weak ones who fail in other ways, in open sins or in unpleasing habits. We are not to cast them off, but to bear with them until they too grow better. For so Christ has done with us, and still does every day; he bears with our many faults and bad habits, and with all our imperfections, and helps us constantly. Then, at the end, he prays for them, praises them, and commends them to God." (AE 35:379)

[Mountaineer]

This is an interesting discussion about atheists and extraterrestrial life.

http://issuesetc.org/2016/12/01/3362-at ... ind-12116/

And a written version: https://thefederalist.com/2016/12/01/al ... -atheists/

Excerpt: There are 100 billion—billion—planets in the Milky Way. If life can pop up into existence here on earth, it would take a sort of medieval geo-centrism to say alien life couldn’t happen somewhere else. Life finds a way.

So where are they?

Those were the conclusive words of physicist Enrico Fermi after quickly hashing out his own thought experiment one day at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Evidently, Area 51 was the hot topic of the day, and he and some colleagues were talking about aliens on their way to lunch. Fermi went silent for a time, until midway through lunch he proclaimed, “Where are they?”

During the intervening silence, Fermi calculated the high probability that a vast number of alien species should exist. Also, statistically speaking, a high subset of them would have evolved millions of years ahead of earth’s schedule. That means there should be a considerable number of alien species with a head start on things like cross-galaxy travel. The galaxy should be teeming with aliens. Yet there is nothing. Where are they?

Fermi’s thought experiment is dubbed “The Fermi Paradox,” a philosophically sterile phrase avoiding several very big and very pink elephants in the room.

[curlew]

During the intervening silence, Fermi calculated the high probability that a vast number of alien species should exist. Also, statistically speaking, a high subset of them would have evolved millions of years ahead of earth’s schedule. That means there should be a considerable number of alien species with a head start on things like cross-galaxy travel. The galaxy should be teeming with aliens. Yet there is nothing. Where are they?

Fermi’s thought experiment is dubbed “The Fermi Paradox,” a philosophically sterile phrase avoiding several very big and very pink elephants in the room.[/i]

Why don't you give the aliens the same benefit of the doubt that you give God? Just because you can't see them and find no evidence that they exist doesn't mean they aren't there.

According to this article in Scientific American the "Fermi Paradox" is a myth...

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gu ... a-paradox/

[Xan]

Why don't you give the aliens the same benefit of the doubt that you give God? Just because you can't see them and find no evidence that they exist doesn't mean they aren't there.

Well that's kind of the point. The hardcore atheists cited give aliens the benefit of all doubts but exclude God out of hand.

[Mountaineer]

Why don't you give the aliens the same benefit of the doubt that you give God? Just because you can't see them and find no evidence that they exist doesn't mean they aren't there.

Well that's kind of the point. The hardcore atheists cited give aliens the benefit of all doubts but exclude God out of hand.

Not only to aliens - but to those who write on a guest blog in a magazine that makes science into a god.

[curlew]

Why don't you give the aliens the same benefit of the doubt that you give God? Just because you can't see them and find no evidence that they exist doesn't mean they aren't there.

Well that's kind of the point. The hardcore atheists cited give aliens the benefit of all doubts but exclude God out of hand.

Many people report having personal experiences with God but you can say the same thing about aliens so I don't consider this to be real evidence that can be trusted.

It has been claimed by some that aliens built the pyramids of Egypt. As for the Biblical God, the first construction project he ordered was the temple of Solomon, following several centuries after the miraculous migration from Egypt.

No reputable archaeological evidence for either the existence of Solomon's temple or the Exodus exists. The Egyptian pyramids are still standing.

I don't believe in either aliens or the Biblical God but in sheer terms of probability I would have to conclude that it is more likely that aliens built the Egyptian pyramids than that anything recorded in the Bible up until the time of Solomon's temple is true.

[Mountaineer]

St. Athanasius has some wise words in his work from the 4th century - On the Incarnation of the Word. A good read as we prepare to celebrate Jesus' Birthday in a few days. Merry Christmas [Christ Mass*] to all!

On the Incarnation of the Word is a classic work of Orthodox theology written by noted bishop of Alexandria, St. Athanasius. In this apologetic treatise, St. Athanasius defends the incarnation of Christ against the derision of 4th century non-believers. St Athanasius explains why God chose to approach his fallen people in human form. He states, "The death of all was consummated in the Lord's body; yet, because the Word was in it, death and corruption were in the same act utterly abolished." St. Athanasius resolves the paradox of the Incarnate by relying heavily on both Scripture and the teachings of the early Church. St. Athanasius also answers several objections to his account, many of which are still raised against Christians today by those outside the Church. On the Incarnation of the Word was highly recommended by modern writer and Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, who suggested that contemporary Christian audiences could benefit from reading more ancient classics. Indeed, though St. Athanasius wrote this text in the 4th century, his style is easy to follow and his concepts are of irreplaceable worth. The entire work in several formats follows at:

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation

* http://cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=M&word=MASS