How an obscure cult grew to become the dominant religion of the Western world
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> How Christianity went on to become not just a state religion, but the central fact of political life, and how Christian institutions of the Middle Ages both maintained and distorted the legacy of the ancient world, is another, different story.
That Christianity and its adherents are manipulated for political ends is a sad fact of life. This doesn't change whether or not Christianity is true, it simply confirms the biblical assertion that people are potentially naive
As a reflective person who reads Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and has become a follower of Jesus (Christian) I find the political association of Christianity and certain spheres of politics disheartening for the cause of logical discourse about the matter. In considering whether or not Christianity is true it is hard to ignore the actions of those who claim to be its adherents.
Yes, it seems an unusual number of people who support Trump identify as Christian - isn't that more likely to do with recent demographics than hypotheses about the lack of reliability of the biblical narrative about Jesus of Nazareth?
Where I am from (New Zealand) a lot of Christians I have spoken with are appalled by Trump and don't buy into the whole "Gawd Bless Americuh" narrative that Trump seems to use to persuade a certain demographic into voting for him.
No political agenda can encapsulate who Jesus of Nazareth was and what he came to do. If it could, that would render the notion of Christianity absurd in the first place.
EDIT: Clarity
Quantum physics deal with a different kind of phenomena that seems to be random in nature. Macroscopic physics emerge from micro-world, so different scale.
If what you are comparing is classical with relativity, Occam only applies to simplest answer that explain all observable reality. Classical didn't explain enough, so it needed to be corrected by a more complex system.
I am wondering what the reasoning behind that is.
Because it doesn't involve the assumption that an all powerful being exists.
The simplest answer is not guaranteed to be the correct answer.
I'm not sure why you are attempting to use Occam's Razor on a person's belief in God and it has the caveat of "usually". 2008 happened because most people accepted the simplest answer, for instance. Simple answers frequently fail in complex situations involving human interaction and a simple acknowledgement that the Bible was written by fallible men who may have misunderstood a few key details and the miracles were metaphorical rather than actual is an equally simple answer.
God isn't about who wrote the right book or got the details perfect, it is about knowing that at the end of the day you should be a good person who loves your fellow man. We will all be judged in the end, even atheists admit as much if they thought through what happens after they die (by their fellow men, if nothing else).
There's a huge difference between knowing people are going to judge your story (at least the story they think they know about you) and believing some all-knowing being is going to choose where to put your soul based on every single thing you ever did or thought. One idea makes sense and has plenty of evidence to support it, the other is bat-shit crazy.
Just because you feel other people are "bat-shit crazy" for not sharing your belief system doesn't change the fact the beliefs are based on a valid life lesson.
I'm curious, do you believe everything you read is literally the complete truth without some interpretation being required? Do you believe everything a politician tells you as the literal truth?
When you are faced with something that can not be explained by the principles you understand, does that mean that the phenomenon ceases to exist ?
So, by that line of thinking - the diffraction of light could not be explained until we had a new theory about light being an electromagnetic wave, so should we have ignored the experimental results altogether, because it's more convenient to what we can understand?
Yes, but the key word here is _claim_. If someone calls themselves a vegan and yet eats veal then you, as someone who understands what a "vegan" is, you can call them out for their hypocrisy.
There are a few problems here:
1) Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe.
2) Furthermore, nobody wants to know because their worldview is justified much more easily by fighting against a straw man rather than objective truth.
3) We as a society don't value objective truth. So I can call myself whatever I want even if I don't really believe in the key doctrinal points.
4) Going down that same path, the people who actually stand up for what is truth and calling out those who are not, get labeled as rabble-rousers and are chastised as being "judgemental."
In any case, what we have here is a big heaping helping of nobody knowing anything anymore... and nobody seems to care.
FWIW: I am a Christian and I did not vote for Trump.
Christians have been fighting over that for as long as there's been Christians. I'm not convinced the word is in any way useful.
At the end of the day even though we might call ourselves different types of Christians based on the traditions and non-essentials that we hold to, there are still Christians from every tribe, tongue, and nation that are united by Christ... and Christian is really only the word I can think of that makes sense.
About the only way you can group all Christians together is that they believe a Christ of some form existed. But that definition is loose enough to include atheists, muslims and others.
Humans have the ability to use context and reason to determine what a person means when they say they are a Christian. 99.9% of the time such a person person means that they are a follower of Jesus Christ and that they believe Jesus Christ to be the son of God.
Of course there will be disagreements on the exact definition, their are disagreements on the exact definition of the word programmer. That doesn't stop it from being a useful word. Any label has exceptions.
But this itself is devoid of meaning. Many people say they follow christ but may have completely different beliefs on what that means. Even believing the son of god is not universal among Christians.
These aren't just blurred lines, it's more like saying a car mechanic, an airline pilot and a web developer are all programmers.
It is nearly universal--universal enough to be useful. If someone says they are a Christian, absent any other knowledge, you can be very confident that they mean that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Obviously not 100% confident, but confident enough to proceed with that assumption in most cases.
I could say that a car mechanic, a pilot, and a web developer are all skilled trades. That doesn't make the term skilled trade meaningless, it just makes it less specific. "Christian" is a very broad classifier and it is about as useful as any other broad classifier. It lacks specifics, but language is recursive--I can add as many extra identifiers as I like, e.g., Protestant Christian, Roman Catholic Christian, and Orthodox Christian.
I'm not even sure what an "actual christian" would be because the books that make up the christian faith contradict themselves all over the place. You could even make arguments that some of the books are false or that some of the apocryphal books are real.
Because there is no factual bedrock underlying religion there is no truth to be found and anyone can just claim anything and ascribe it to whatever religion they want for the most part.
Rather, No True Scotsman requires that someone change their definition to exclude counterexamples while maintaining that they're keeping an untainted definition.
It's entirely legitimate to say "There are people who call themselves Christians but do not act in accordance with X, Y, and Z teachings of Christ. Therefore, I don't accept their claim." That's definition, not redefinition.
As in "yeah, those people only _claim_ to be christian, they're not _actual_ christians". It's a textbook example of No True Scotsman.
The idea that there is only one kind of christian died the moment that Mr Iscariot did his friend a bad one. Ever since then, there's been schism after schism after schism. Even Peter and Paul saw and did things differently. In the modern day, we're talking about rivalries so deep that even moving a ladder[1] is proven impossible, so how "they're only _claiming_ to be christians, and aren't _actually_ christians" passes muster, I don't know. These are the heads of christian sects going back more than a millenium, who disagree on what it means to be christian. Folks who are in charge of multiple large houses of worship, with large congregations that see them as their christian guides... but somehow "oh, I don't think they see it right, therefore 'not christian'"?
"No True Scotsman" is perfectly appropriate.
There are some contradictions but claiming that it's all over the place is a blanket statement. And do not forget that while the Bible contains the ancient scriptures, they should be seen in the light of the Gospel (i.e. what Jesus supposedly said about them) rather than on their own, in Christianism.
Seemingly contradict. Have you reviewed what the other side has to say[1] on this matter? Ever had something that didn't seem to make sense until you saw a different perspective on it?
> You could even make arguments that some of the books are false or that some of the apocryphal books are real.
Physical presence of a book doesn't make it scripture. And that's exactly what Christians believe the Bible is: scripture. And it is held to a very different set of standards than what is not scripture.
> Because there is no factual bedrock underlying religion there is no truth to be found and anyone can just claim anything and ascribe it to whatever religion they want for the most part.
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "no factual bedrock". You and I exist. We have these things called "logic", "reason", and "truth" which cannot be explained in a solely materialistic fashion. There are things such as "ethics" and "morality" which not only exist but a surprising amount of people adhere to. Christians make the claim that the only reason any of this makes sense is because we are created by God and that it is His design and decree which allow us to understand the world around us. No secular/nontheistic worldview can truly offer a response to this that doesn't look to itself.
[1]: http://defendinginerrancy.com/contradictions-inerrancy/
Not all christians agree on what is and isn't in the bible. There is no single Christian bible. I have no doubt there are some sects out there that don't have a bible, for a couple of hundred years no christians did.
And then we could probably have a reasonable conversation about it.
I'm not sure a ministry is the most impartial source in the first place, in the part I've watched he even lists secular biblical scholars as an attack on christianity.
Because nothing is supported by provable factual truth anyone can claim anything.
Unlike math/science where you can actually provide evidence and proofs, religion is more about who has the loudest voice to spread their dogma.
I found this to be a very interesting link, but probably for a different reason than you did. It's an interesting very wide circular argument. It describes a group of people studying a book in so much detail they decide to agree that the book must be true in every aspect. It goes to the level of "the book describes how the book should be read, therefore we must interpret it in that way". (paraphrasing "appeal to extra-biblical genre is contrary to inerrancy")
The weird thing about that whole idea is that you could find a group of people to say that about any book. Make them known for studying that book and they immediately gain the book-interpreting credentials. Whether the bible or any other book is completely true or not, this way of arguing any case about anything seems bonkers to me. Why not just say "ICBI believes that..." rather than "The contention of some contemporary NT scholars that there are contradictions in Scripture is both illogical and unbiblical."
Probably because there's more Christian sects than there are flavours of ice cream. All with different beliefs.
To me, Christianity is synonymous with Orthodox Christianity, but for the typical American 'Christian' it's probably some flavour of Protestant Evangelicalism...
Different customs and perhaps some different interpretations, but if you believe something different (e.g. that deviates from or adds to scripture) then objectively you have a different basis and therefore a different faith.
I'd encourage you to watch some of the debates by James White[1] (yes, those are links to purchase, but if you check the podcast feed/blog they link to YouTube videos of many of the debates. What you'll clearly see in many of those debates is how the arguments of one side breaks down. I can't see how any reasonable observer could watch a handful of those debates and not be at least open to if not convinced that perhaps some of what these "different beliefs" offer isn't real Christianity, but something dressed up as such.
I do believe that there are very small number of _actual_ Christians in the US. Definitely not the 70-ish% from Pew[1]. Maybe 5-10%. Probably even less.
[1]: http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2011/01/19/available-d... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States
Anyhow, I don't care to argue specifics, only to point out that as everyone thinks their version is correct, and there's many versions out there, it's difficult to say what a 'real' Christian believes, assuming one is charitable enough to consider sects other than one's own as 'Christian'.
I wasn't trying to list types of Christians, merely pointing out that, to a typical American Christian, evangelicalism is synonymous with Christianity. I also missed the Lutherans, Anglicans, and a bunch of others.
Edit - should add, Orthodox consider any church 'in communion' with the rest to be the same church. So Russian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian Orthodox churches, as well as the Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople, as well as a bunch I'm missing and too lazy to Google, all consider each other to be the same church. Imagine the Catholic church but with a dozen or more 'Popes', all more or less equal (I say more or less because the larger churches often wield more influence, even if they don't officially have more authority).
Not only is there the issue of discovering what's been lost in translation, but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries. Entire books could have conceivably been lost. Forgeries could have been adopted. Even if you disregard all that, is there really an objectively correct way to read Christian (or any) scripture? I'd say no.
My view is that religions are like languages. What defines a language is what is widely spoken and widely understood within some community. It doesn't matter whether a word has been recorded in a dictionary. It can be said to be part of the language if it is used and understood.
By the same token, I would define religions as they are practiced, not based on some interpretation of what has survived from the texts. Based on that view, there isn't (and never has been) a monolithic Christian religion. Instead there are many fragmented communities that have varying rituals/practices. Some of these practices are quite widespread (mainstream) and some are not.
I understand the desire to base our understanding of religions on the texts. But I can't see any coherent way to do it.
There has actually been surprisingly little editing mostly because there are thousands of very old NT manuscripts, with copies of most of the NT dating from just 100 years or so after its writing.
There are scribe errors and even some editing, but the sheer number of ancient examples is enough to reach consensus.
"Just 100 years after its writing"
... Because a verbal recollection about a controversial topic is so trustworthy and surely haven't been 'edited'. Remember how many 'facts' there are about Holocaust deniers? And this is happening with actual evidence to the contrary around.
Yes, there is no way to prove that something wasn't edited in the intervening century. However we do have many early sources. If there were large edits made during this time we would expect to see more variation in the early sources we do have.
This assumes there was no selection bias in what was preserved. If they agreed so well then how would you explain the huge variety in early christian sects?
Yes it is possible that alternative versions of the books of the New Testament existed, but were destroyed or not preserved. However, it is likely that if this were the case, we would have references to these alternate versions. We have many writings from early church leaders discussing canonical and heretical texts. These writings don't mention that there were heavily edited versions of the New Testament texts when discussing heretical texts. They do mention that there were additional texts that they considered heretical.
>If they agreed so well then how would you explain the huge variety in early christian sects?
There are hundreds of protestant sects today, yet nearly everyone uses identical copies of the Bible. There is plenty of room for variety from different interpretation of the same text.
Various heresies arose and were condemned as heresies, but they were mostly based either on differing interpretations or a different view was to what texts they considered canonical. No early Christian heresy that I'm aware of depending on an alternative version of the books of the New Testament.
Protestantism came about long after the bible, early christian sects didn't have a bible.
There are many books that never got accepted as canon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Non-canonical_gospels , possibly many differing versions of the same books. And there were many early sects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_early_Christian_t... . The further down you go the messier things get but there was more diversity in early christianity than modern christianity.
You argued that the variation between sects was evidence of multiple versions of the New Testament texts. I offered the number and variation of protestant sects despite using the same text as a counterexample.
>There are many books that never got accepted as canon:
Yes that is true. There are many non canonical books. That was however, not the original argument. We have no arguments from early church leaders that heretical sects were using an alternate version of various books. We have many arguments that heretical sects were using different books entirely.
That being said, the modern canon was decided very early on --probably by the latter half of the 2nd century, and the books there are very good arguments as to why certain books were omitted.
>possibly many differing versions of the same books
There is little evidence for this. Again we have plenty of evidence for competing books. Not much evidence for differing versions of the books that we have.
> And there were many early sects
Most of the sects mentioned on the wikipedia page were offshoots of the mainstream church that were quickly declared heretical. You can obviously argue that the winner writes history, but this argument does nothing to support the claim that the books we have today are heavily edited versions.
>The further down you go the messier things get but there was more diversity in early christianity than modern christianity.
This makes no sense. Obviously as you go back to the source there were fewer followers and thus fewer versions. Thousands of years of schisms produced much more variation, not less.
The marcionites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism#Marcionite_canon) for one had different versions Luke and the pauline epistles.
> This makes no sense. Obviously as you go back to the source there were fewer followers and thus fewer versions. Thousands of years of schisms produced much more variation, not less.
It makes perfect sense, early schisms had much more genetic material to draw there variations from and no centralized authorities. Are there any sects today as diverse as the Ebionites and Marcionites?
Except that the sources we have for even just the Gospels (specifically, the synoptic Gospels) are evidence of large edits (and probably at least one non-preserved source), it's just that then surviving differing results of those edits have been traditionally ascribed as independent works of different authors.
I'm not aware of any scholars who believe that the Gospels are just differing branches--the results of various edits.
Also most scholars believe that they were all written during the first century, so the claim that there were "edits over the centuries" that I was initially refuting is incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Luke#Comparison_with...
You've pointed out one case where some scholars believe some information wasn't included. However, Mark is right there along side it with that information. Nothing was lost. It certainly wasn't the result of various edits over the centuries.
Also the supposition on Matthew's motives is just that, supposition. If he were synthesizing multiple texts and other oral sources, he likely wouldn't reproduce them all in their entirety.
And why are you citing wikipedia as a source?
Excuse me, I guess you haven't noticed that the author of earlier comments with whom you exchanged opinions is not the one who wrote the comment you answered here.
Let me try to explain you why I gave that Wikipedia quote here. I've read your statement:
"I meant that Matthew and Luke were independently written by separate authors at different times -- potentially including information from earlier source material -- not the results of various edits of the sources over time."
Now if you read my quote, it points to the text in Wikipedia that notes that "the majority opinion among scholars is" "that Matthew and Luke both used [Mark's Gospel] and the "sayings gospel"" "as their basic sources."
I don't claim that "everybody" believes that, I don't claim that Wikipedia itself is a proof, or always right. The quote I've selected, however, matches the information I have, and that is that majority of scholars believe that the basis for both Matthew's and Luke's is Mark's and "the sayings." I've never considered Wikipedia as a "proof" but only as a pointer for something that is written in the real books and articles about the topic.
I've just read your claim "independently wrote" and "potentially including earlier sources" and recognized that your claim doesn't match what I understand is the majority opinion opinion of the Gospel scholars (not "potentially" but that the basic source is Mark's), which you maybe haven't been aware of, and you could be interested to know about. So I've quoted the first entry that I stumbled to, not knowing how detailed Wikipedia is. And it is actually more detailed, this entry, for example, is the whole only about what is again claimed to be a "preferred by an overwhelming majority of critically trained New Testament scholars" as an answer to the so-called "synoptic problem":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis
"The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were based on the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical sayings collection from the Christian oral tradition called Q." It's surely not a proof by itself for anything but it links to more primary sources and also to the other opinions, which are claimed to be a minority ones.
The Gospels and most of the rest of the New Testament most likely existed in the form we have them today by the end of the first century. The collection as a whole was most likely standardized by the middle of the second century.
Then we got a collection of different people arguing mostly from what they just read on wikipedia.
The problem is that you and the other 2 people commenting don't seem to understand that I'm not saying that many Biblical scholars don't believe that Matthew and Luke used Mark and Q as sources. I'm arguing that most Biblical scholars believe they were written by 1 person each using Mark and Q, and other oral traditions as a source. As opposed to each being the end result of multiple edits made over the centuries.
>I've just read your claim "independently wrote"
I think you're mistaking my meaning of independently wrote. I mean that they were created independently of each other, by separate authors. I do not mean they are lacking any dependencies.
>"potentially including earlier sources"
I said potentially because no Biblical scholars are very certain of any of their hypotheses. Biblical criticism is not a science and most New Testament scholar would tell you that they believe that the 2 source hypothesis merely the most likely.
Most computer scientists believe that P != NP, but if I told you that "potentially P!=NP", you wouldn't take that to mean that I believe most computer scientists believe it does.
As to whether Matthew and Luke were based on Mark and Q, the current most accepted theory is that they were. However as I said before Biblical scholarship is an art not a science. The 2 source theory is currently fashionable, but there are many reasonable arguments against the 2 source theory and many scholars that do not agree with it.
However, again majority of these other scholars and the other theories that you refer to still claim that the synoptic gospels aren't "independently" written, that is, that they weren't written only on "oral traditions." The scholars are aware that arguing only "oral tradition" implies even more "edits" and "inventions" over the time between the events happened and were written, that is, that they'd have to assume that a direct "intervention from God" prevented "the Chinese whispers" effect that would ensue. And that the scholars can't believe because if it were so until the point the texts were written the first time, it would have continued to be even more so afterwards and they know it isn't so.
That's why I've entered the discussion, because I'm really not aware of scholars that would even use your choice of words. You can of course say that you personally don't even have to believe what any of scholars claim, and I wouldn't have reacted were it obvious for me that your argument is based purely on your faith, as in you having a "strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction" rather than using a scientific approach. Again, I'm not aware of scholars that openly argue only from their "spiritual position" who are even accepted as being scholars from the rest of them. Because if "God made it intentionally so with all these errors and inconsistencies" all their efforts are in vain, and there's no point to even discuss.
There are actually mainstream Biblical scholars who propose that all 4 gospels were written mostly independently of each other based mainly on oral tradition.
The argument is that Jewish society at the time transmitted information primarily orally, oral tradition was regarded as more accurate than written sources. The argument goes that they were very practiced in transmitting stories without changes and had been doing so for generations. The gospels were all written within living memory of Christ's life. We're not talking about hundreds of years.
There are also Biblical scholars who believe that Luke was based on eyewitness accounts through interviews both written and oral. These Biblical scholars usually are usually also Christian, but in their academic works aren't arguing from a "spiritual position".
My personal opinion, based on reading many sources on this topic, is that it's likely that Luke combined early written accounts from Mark and other sources with witness interviews to produce his gospel.
"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught."
There are known to be other gospels and epistles that were in circulation in the second and third centuries, and the oldest surviving manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas is roughly contemporaneous with the oldest surviving of the canonical gospels. So why is the Gospel of Luke more authoritative than the Gospel of Thomas? The short answer is those who the modern Christian churches choose to believe are authoritative found one more in agreement with it than the other (note that this does not pass judgement on whether or not that belief is historically accurate).
It is not. Scripture defines the teachings of Christ.
> Not only is there the issue of discovering what's been lost in translation, but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries. Entire books could have conceivably been lost. Forgeries could have been adopted.
This gets into an area called textual criticism. I'm half-asleep right now so hopefully what follows will make sense...
1. Consider for a moment that the Bible is the most validated work of antiquity that humanity possesses[1]. The thing is, if you can look at the evidence and yet say "we don't know" then you (in order to be consistent) have to admit that you basically "don't know" about anything that you don't have exact photocopies of the originals.
2. If you understand the Christian claims surrounding scripture (and here, importantly is preservation) then you must understand that that doubt you have doesn't exist within our beliefs.
3. Based on what I understand, the Bible was essentially transmitted through time using something that instantly brought to mind the idea of bittorrent. We actually know when and where changes were made and we have gotten back to the original text in all but a handful of instances. And in the instances where there is a textual variant—it doesn't change any of the doctrines or core tenants of the faith. There are thousands of copies of the Old and New Testaments that have been preserved. Some of these copies were done under the threat of death (persecution). Scribal errors can be found because we have so many.
BTW this stands in stark contrast with a book like the Quran which doesn't have sort of historical manuscript tradition. There were likely changes to the Quran by Uthman but we don't know what they were because they were destroyed... so keep that in mind.
> Even if you disregard all that, is there really an objectively correct way to read Christian (or any) scripture? I'd say no.
Sure there is. Jesus makes claims you either have to accept or reject. There is a very clear line.
For most notable events in history we have much more evidence than just text. Caesars writings may not have the same scrutiny but we've got coins with his face on them from around Europe. Christianity had little impact on the world for the first couple of centuries.
This is the main point; they do not. The manuscripts at best describe the teachings of different sects of early christianity invoking the authority of christ for validation. That's why they contradict so much and that is why there are so many. Even an actual "original" manuscript cannot change that.
Not really. Christianity is defined by the teachings of Christ "as we know them".
If Christ existed, but had e.g. completely different teachings, then it would be irrelevant to know them (as pertaining to Christianity).
(It would be interesting to know them, of course, but it wouldn't be the "real Christianity". Christianity is defined by its history: the scripts it was based upon, and what the churches calling themselves christian did.).
That's because Christianity caught on and was adopted for the specific message we know. Not just because some Christ person spoke those things, but for their content (as we know it).
It's just like if someone comes and says "the real KFC recipe by the kernel is actually with marmalade and fish-oil". Even if that's true, what KFC is to people is what they've known to eat for all those decades, not merely a generic placeholder than can hold any value as long as it proves to be more historically accurate than the previous.
I agree with most of your argument, and it's pretty similar to what I wrote. But:
> Not really. Christianity is defined by the teachings of Christ "as we know them".
How do you define "as we know them?"
It seems to me that you're supposing that there's some "overall message" to Christianity that exists within the modern population of Christians. I don't agree with this, and I see no coherent way to discover what that message would be. But if you want to define a religion in this way, you have to take on that task.
I think that Christianity should be defined by "what is practiced as Christianity today," within each community that sees itself as Christian. Therefore, my argument goes, there isn't a single coherent "Christendom." Instead, there exists a highly fragmented population of Christians, across which practices and beliefs significantly differ. My argument is that none of these Christian communities is any more correct than the others.
I think that's a pretty mainstream interpretation of modern Christianity. I don't think I'm really reaching here.
No, I just mean "as we know them" as books -- the words in series. Not their interpretations.
The various churches and demoninations, yes, they are about the teachings of Christ as they "know them" (that is, they include their historically developed interpretation on top).
So the "teaching of Jesus as we know them" is a human construct only remotely rooted in what the actual Jesus might have thought or said, and therefore has nothing special (magical) compared to, say, Buddhism.
Another complicating factor is the existence of highly syncretic forms of religion. Are Manichaeism (a Gnostic religion, which is to something that's vaguely syncretic of both Christianity and Zoroastrianism) and Druze (a Christian-Gnostic-Muslim syncretism) Christians or not?
Furthermore, an interesting facet of history is that religions tend to attack heretics far more than they attack heathens. This does seem to continue to the modern day--if you consider atheism to be a religion, then agnosticism (being noncommittal as to the existence of god) is a natural "heresy" of that "religion"--and militant atheists like Dawkins reserve even more anger for agnostics than for Christians.
> Another complicating factor is the existence of highly syncretic forms of religion. Are Manichaeism (a Gnostic religion, which is to something that's vaguely syncretic of both Christianity and Zoroastrianism) and Druze (a Christian-Gnostic-Muslim syncretism) Christians or not?
Why is this complicated? Again, if I call myself something but yet plainly reject or outright act in a manner that goes against the stated doctrines then I am clearly not what I claim.
Examples: Cath olicism: Rejects the finished work of Christ by replacing the old sacrifices with a new one (the mass). (Read Hebrews 10). Teaches that man's sin is imputed to them (against what Romans teaches).
Mormonism: Actually the most polytheistic religion in the world. (Since there are in an infinite number of gods.)
Nestorianism: Confuses Jesus' being and goes against the council of Nicaea. Condemned at two church councils as heresy.
> Furthermore, an interesting facet of history is that religions tend to attack heretics far more than they attack heathens. This does seem to continue to the modern day--if you consider atheism to be a religion, then agnosticism (being noncommittal as to the existence of god) is a natural "heresy" of that "religion"--and militant atheists like Dawkins reserve even more anger for agnostics than for Christians.
I'm glad you at least acknowledge this. I steal Mohler's term of "worldview" when describing atheism—but in practically every way you have a religion in atheism: you are the god, you have a way of viewing the world, you have "holy books" written by people such as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens... you get the idea.
But yes, it makes sense. I care far more what other people get wrong about my faith who claim to be like me but are not rather than people who don't make that claim...
While I can't speak for all atheists, I'd suggest that you may be grasping a bit here. Atheists that I've met don't consider themselves a / the god. Having an understanding or a view of the world doesn't require or imply religion. Atheists don't consider any texts to be holy, let alone those written by people proclaiming loudest that there are no holy texts.
This idea is extraordinarily seductive, as much as any religion. Personally I think it's complete bullshit. I simply refuse to believe that I am the highest power or intelligence or consciousness in any realm. I am not God.
> If I don't believe in any kind of higher power, then by definition humanity is the highest power ...
We may need to start defining some terms here. Power, for starters. Lots of things in my life have power - government, partner, family, wall sockets. I'm not sure any of them could be considered 'highest', especially in the sense that Christians may use that word -- whereby it's an entity (power) that created all other powers, and therefore has ultimate, unassailable power.
> and more specifically, I am the highest power in my own life.
Clearly this isn't the case. (Mind, this does not equate to: 'Therefore, god(s)')
> Atheism is a faith that elevates Me to the status of God in my experience of life.
Another word to define -- faith. If you're using it in a sense akin to 'believing in something without any evidence', then atheists tend to eschew the concept and practice of faith.
Conflating the word 'faith' in the way that religious people use it to defend why they think something that they can't adequately substantiate, with the reasons that atheists think there probably isn't a god, is disingenuous.
Um, I think that was exactly my point. You don't recognize the existence of consciousness or intelligence that is either greater than or antecedent to yours. Obviously I'm speaking of "power" in the religious sense, not in a legal or political sense. You are subject, ultimately, only to your own judgment. For what reason would any other representative of the human species be fit to judge you on a moral basis, or to contemplate your use or purpose for existing, other than that you have chosen to submit to such judgment? That choice and burden is yours alone. You are your own god. Denying that much celebrated aspect of atheism is what's disingenuous.
I know many atheists are greatly offended by the use of the word "faith" to describe the conviction that humans are the very apex of intelligence/consciousness, and that we and the universe that contains us can't have been designed and coded by another intelligent force. What evidence can there possibly be for or against this conviction, even if only lightly held (which would make you more of an agnostic than an atheist)? And given that, what else is there beside faith to guide either one of us?
Well that's not true.
I've met a number of people that I have determined have a greater intelligence than me -- and that number shoots up once you include people who I know only through their work.
On a slightly fuzzier front, I know people with laudable ethics / morals that may indeed surpass my own working set.
There's nothing supernatural about that assessment.
And I don't think I'm subject exclusively to my own judgement.
Speculating on the 'use or purpose for existing' pre-supposes that such a use or purpose exists, or rather, that there is a requirement that it exists (as an externality to myself or otherwise) with an implication that absent such an externally-provided use or purpose, we'd be stuck, twiddling our opposable thumbs, with nothing useful or interesting to do.
> I know many atheists are greatly offended by the use of the word "faith" to describe the conviction that humans are the very apex of intelligence/consciousness ...
This may be attributable to atheists tending to be well-informed on evolution -- consequently inclined to twitch at this assertion. At the least, we'd want to insert an 'as of right now' after the word 'apex'.
The idea that humans are the very apex and there is no further progress / evolution to be had is very much the required position of a theist, and not how atheists tend to view the world.
> ... and that we and the universe that contains us can't have been designed and coded by another intelligent force.
I think most atheists (again, I really can't be speaking for them all) don't say it can't, just that it's spectacularly unlikely that it was.
Just from a statistical angle, given there have been some tens of thousands of religions generated over the millennia, the chance of any given religion being the right one is low.
As noted by TFA, the history of this religion (and of course it's not unique in this regard) being plagued by logical incongruities & inconsistencies, borrowing heavily from early mythologies, having minimal corroborating evidence, etc -- it doesn't increase the odds of being more right than the rest.
> And given that, what else is there beside faith to guide either one of us?
Heh! I think at this point I'm going to have to defer to Stephen Roberts[1]
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
"Higher consciousness" does not refer to one of your smarter friends or coworkers. Unless you're a Scientologist, I presume you don't view other humans as deities/gods of any kind.
> The idea that humans are the very apex and there is no further progress / evolution to be had is very much the required position of a theist
Nonsense. There is no conflict with evolution in a deliberately created world. It's no different from any other complex mechanism. Folks who say otherwise, religious or not, are manufacturing conflict.
Anyway, I'm not sure why you brought evolution into this. It has nothing to do with any of my arguments. By "apex" I'm referring to humanity's place as the highest most powerful consciousness. Again, a hierarchy in the sense that does not admit your smarter friends to a higher level than you.
> the history of this religion (and of course it's not unique in this regard) being plagued by logical incongruities & inconsistencies, ...
Yes, quite, completely agree, and the sordid history of religion has nothing to do with my nagging suspicion that you and I are not the highest representative type of consciousness in the universe.
I mean, damn man, look at yourself. Your passions, your force of will, your sense of humor. The sense of self, whatever it is, that makes you think there's a "you", which separates you from the apes that just look like us, and which compels you to discuss philosophy on Hacker News. You think that shit is accidental? Your brain and body, which provide the seat for consciousness and the machinery to navigate your environment -- those things don't demand an explanation beyond, "it just happened"? The existence of a mechanism that allows those things to have evolved from a primordial soup of small organic molecules... doesn't that make you the least bit suspicious that there is a higher intelligent creative force at work?
Or are you able to just say, "hey, it's just the multiverse, it was bound to happen"? Serious question. I'm not just being snarky.
You originally said:
> Atheism is a faith that elevates Me to the status of God ...
That's what I railed against. It assumes that once you've determined there's probably no gods, that you then have a gap that needs filling. I don't expect any atheists think that way.
Interesting reference to scientology and humans as deities - given, again, the TFA was all about the presence of Jesus in human form, plus the confusion and splintering within the church that the rather clumsy construct of the trinity caused.
I mentioned evolution because you suggested that atheists think that we (humans) are the apex. Once you understand evolution you realise there's no direction, and certainly no stable state, let alone ultimate apex. Humans have been on the planet for such a tiny amount of time, and there's nothing to suggest that we're the best thing that the evolutionary process can generate.
Yes, as you say, we're the most powerful consciousness on this planet right now -- but that's like those towns that have signs attesting that they have "the longest single span bridge ... crossing an east-west river ... that has a w in its name ... in the southern hemisphere ... built before 1857".
That is, it's such an exuberantly qualified assertion that, while true, it's more distracting than useful. We may well not be the most powerful consciousness in the universe, and we're almost certainly not going to be the most powerful consciousness ever to have lived once everything wraps up.
And no, as above, I don't think 'it was bound to happen', as that implies an intent to achieve the current state of the universe. It did happen, and that's a sufficiently fascinating situation to keep us busy.
As to your last question -- I think saying 'it just happened' is to give up on some potentially very interesting lines of enquiry. But I don't think it's necessary to invoke a 'higher intelligent creative force' to address any questions around the process. In any case, you then have to contend with the problem I mentioned in my last reply -- if you do think a higher intelligent creative force is necessary to explain whatever gaps remain today, how do you confidently pick the right one from the myriad religions available?. Wikipedia suggests there's around 4,200 religions.
Also without trying to sound snarky, most religious people can't satisfactorily address this one. AFAICT most people inherit their religious beliefs from their parents, and that doesn't set off as many alarm bells for them as I would expect.
EDIT: Forgot to address this bit:
> Nonsense. There is no conflict with evolution in a deliberately created world. It's no different from any other complex mechanism. Folks who say otherwise, religious or not, are manufacturing conflict.
My understanding is that there is a conflict, at least with some religious people / religions.
First, the obvious one -- evolution denies the Adam & Eve myth, which then precludes original sin, which then renders the salvation story somewhat irrelevant.
Second, in Christian scripture it's asserted that humans (well, man) was made in the image of the deity. So, if we either voluntarily architect ourselves or evolve naturally into something different, several possible implications ensue, including: we were evidently not made as good as we could/should have been, which suggests the image was not optimum, and/or the deity will be upset that we aren't happy with the image we were made in.
> Yes, as you say, we're the most powerful consciousness on this planet right now
That's not really what I'm driving at, for that misses the point that I've been trying to defend on behalf of nvahalik. What I'm saying is that by necessity you are the most powerful consciousness in your own life. Same would be true for me were I not a believer. Society may judge and punish deeds that disregard social norms. My friends and acquaintances may value me more or less, colored by their own human experience. My family may need me, for a time.
But if I'm my own boss, then all these folks can go fuck themselves as soon as I become grumpy about their involvement in my life. They are, after all, hairless apes just like me, arisen from and destined to be dust just as I am. As an atheist, you are your own authority/judge/prescriptor/appraiser/lover/whateverer. You may generously entertain your fellow apes' performance of these roles if it suits you. But that choice belongs to you alone. You are your own beginning and end. You are Tom Cruise.
My belief in a creator relieves me of that burden. I rest easy in the confidence that I was created by and live in the quiet presence of a force whose intelligence is transcendentally beyond mine, and yet not totally alien from me either, for I have been assured that, as you say, we are created in the image of God. Not physically; the hairless ape bodies are temporary vessels. But as I alluded to before, your passions, sense of humor, your love of soft furry animals -- these are things that your creator understands. Care was taken in your design and manufacture. It's obvious to me, anyway, that some serious fucking care was taken, one way or another, to give rise to you, a creature with a sense of self and desire to talk religion on the internet.
> And no, as above, I don't think 'it was bound to happen', as that implies an intent to achieve the current state of the universe.
Very well put. I personally feel that intent is overwhelming implied, if not brazenly avowed, by the preposterously complex and beautifully engineered results. If see more than three rocks stacked atop one another while hiking, I know with near certainty that an intelligent being (another hiker) built the structure to mark the trail. It boggles my mind that anyone can entertain lack of intent in the rise of The Whole Fucking Universe, with all of its stacked rocks, furry animals, and sentient self-aware beings.
Original sin and the creation myth and all that... I don't know, and I don't care. I know some do care, but they're the minority, albeit the loudest minority. Here's a trick for when you meet one of them: ask them if they'd still have any use for Christ's mercy if the creation myth were not literally true. That ought to shut them up.
As to why I chose the message of Jesus for my own faith... it probably helps that my family is nominally Christian. But I also really believe myself to have enough objectivity and an open enough mind to chose freely. I've shopped around, and the message of Christ is only one I've found that puts no burden on me whatsoever to earn my way. In fact, Jesus makes it quite plain that we can't earn anything by deeds, and that our only choice is take our salvation as a free gift. Obviously you have to believe in the giver, and once that really sinks in, it's impossible not to love the giver of such a gift with your whole heart, which ends up being the meat of Jesus' response when he was asked what we need to do to be redeemed. The rest of the new testament has a lot of good advice about how to live life, IMO. But there are plenty of believers who have no access to a bible, and a God of mercy and love takes them too.
> I think saying 'it just happened' is to give up on some potentially very interesting lines of enquiry. But I don't think it's necessary to invoke a 'higher intelligent creative force' to address any questions around the process.
I'm genuinely interested to know what alternatives you like. What you would invoke instead of a higher intelligent creative force?
and
> As to why I chose the message of Jesus for my own faith... it probably helps that my family is nominally Christian.
You say that you shopped around, but I'm curious what that actually means -- how many of the 4000+ religions you explored, how deep the exploration and experiences were in comparison to the first 10-20 years of your life of being exposed exclusively to your parents' branch of Christianity.
I don't understand the '[Christianity is the only] religion that puts no burden on me to earn my way' bit either -- can you explain that differently please?
Now, please don't compare me to Tom Cruise. ; )
I think I've misunderstood something about my position of not needing a higher power to explain the universe, or to delegate (abrogate?) ultimate responsibility of my actions to. I think I now understand -- this is not something you think is possible for anyone (or perhaps just 'reasonable for a thoughtful person') to think -- would that be a fair statement? There's been a few comments you've made around this subject, that I've carelessly overlooked, so I apologise for not being clearer on this earlier.
When you ask about alternatives to invoke instead of a 'higher intelligent creative force', I'm at a loss. I have no alternatives (beyond nature, or what's observed, etc) but more importantly I don't feel a need for them. I've always assumed all atheists think this way. But I've never considered that theists might assume that atheists are plagued by some kind of sensation - doubt, fear, a feeling of absence or missing something profoundly important - because of this.
With regards the 'complexity implies intent' argument -- how do you reconcile that with the observation that plenty of other people see the same levels of complexity but come to a different conclusion?
Tangential to the question of the gap sensation ... you mentioned:
> But there are plenty of believers who have no access to a bible, and a God of mercy and love takes them too.
Are you talking about people who have never been exposed to Christianity? I recall a droll (though likely apocryphal) quote where someone disappointedly asks "So if you'd never told me about Jesus, I'd definitely go to heaven? Why did you tell me then?"
For people who aren't exposed to the Bible (I'm including the ~100,000 years of humans as we'd recognise them) do you feel that they would have felt a higher power was self-evident from complexity, and/or needed an explanation beyond their own (physical) observations & experiences, and/or had a similar conviction to their local gods as you do to yours? Had you been born into a time & culture that worshipped, say, Zeus, what belief system do you think you would have had as an adult?
I expect neither of us is likely to fundamentally change, and that I've turned this into a 'I'm a Christian - AMA!' (sorry! :)
Complexity implies intent. The funny thing is that everyone really does agree with this, except when the discussion is ontic in nature. To take an example from Carl Sagan (yes, I know), if we were to detect a radio signal from deep space that counts prime numbers, then there would 100% unanimous agreement that it's of intelligent origin. I'm puzzled as to why folks are willing to extend assumption of intelligence only to our "peers" in the universe (i.e. aliens), but not to any kind of higher creative force responsible for the very existence of both us and those peers.
In other words, absolutely everyone agrees that a machine that transmits prime numbers must have an intelligent designer, and yet some folks say that a FAR more complex machine (such as evolution, or your conscious brain) must not.
> I'm at a loss. I have no alternatives (beyond nature, or what's observed, etc)
Beyond nature? Where did this observable nature come from? Some people dismiss that question as though "nature" is just like arithmetic; one thing naturally leads to another, and here we are! That's insane to me. Why for example are the universe's fundamental physical constants set at the exact values needed to allow "one thing to lead to another"? At this point, a fashionable atheist will inevitably invoke the multiverse and some flavor of the anthropic principle, which naturally leads me back around to same kind of question: where did the fucking multiverse come from? Ultimately there are only two possible answers; either the universe was somehow "intended", or it's turtles all the way down.
> how do you reconcile that with the observation that plenty of other people see the same levels of complexity but come to a different conclusion?
My rather patronizing explanation is that the emotional baggage that often burdens notions of theology makes fertile ground for cognitive disconnect (on both sides of course). I suspect you disagree with regard to your reasoning. :) What am I missing?
> ...this is not something you think is possible for anyone (or perhaps just 'reasonable for a thoughtful person') to think -- would that be a fair statement?
No, I know you believe that, and I don't judge it. My rather too subtle and maybe not useful point is that whatever roles God plays in a religious person's life, those roles must necessarily be played by yourself (or whatever fellow humans you choose). Even if you have no use for those roles, that judgment and the choice to leave them unattended are yours alone; there is no "higher power" for you to appeal to that isn't made of flesh and blood. I understand why atheists dislike this whole notion, and it's not a hill I'll die defending.
> I've never considered that theists might assume that atheists are plagued by some kind of sensation - doubt, fear, a feeling of absence or missing something profoundly important - because of this.
In fact this assumption is central to many Christians' belief system. I find it to be terribly presumptuous and judgmental, but it's ubiquitous. The idea is that non-believers must be defiant, otherwise how is their punishment justified? Same argument goes for the need for forgiveness or redemption. I feel a need for forgiveness from my creator deeply and innately, but I have no idea how I got there, and there's little chance of ever evangelizing someone else into the same conviction. It's not a matter of self esteem; for me it's disappointment at so often falling short of the purposes for which I was created.
> Had you been born into a time & culture that worshipped, say, Zeus, what belief system do you think you would have had as an adult?
That's an excellent question that totally summarizes your point in the prior paragraphs. If my strong tendencies in my current context are any indication, I'd like to believe that I'd still be interested in being a good person, and that the criteria for doing so were such by the authority of a greater being that created me, and that this would secure my redemption just as it does today. BTW this is a very biblical idea, supported in Jesus' own words (can cite and discuss if you want).
> You say that you shopped around
Well, that was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and it should probably be taken just as casually as I put it. I have been exposed to the ideas of all of the major faith systems (There aren't really 4000 religions; that figure counts all of the minor variations of a very limited number of major religions). I've been struggling with this stuff since I was 10 years old --my first existential crisis, the first of many. But I ain't no religious scholar, and as dragonwriter pointed on elsewhere in this discussion thread, I remain greatly ignorant of important details.
> I don't understand the '[Christianity is the only] religion that puts no burden on me to earn my way' bit either -- can you explain that differently please?
Let me think about how to phrase it differently than in paragraph surrounding that bit.
Ooookay, but the problem there is the proverbial god of gaps challenge. Right now we don't know the full details for big bang -> solar-system style aggregation -> goldilocks planets -> amino acids -> RNA -> DNA -> complex multicelullar lifeforms ... though some of the steps within are speculated about with some good degrees of confidence.
Either way, previously non-secular types would attest that spontaneous generation of maggots was only explainable by gods ... and before that, thunder, lightning, spring growth, autumn harvest, eyeball, eclipse, flagella, laryngeal nerve, and so on.
You seem to be suggesting that evolution currently sits entirely within the unexplained category, despite very little about evolution not being understood or explained by epistemological observation.
I'm drawn to a Richard Dawkins quote[2] - viz: "Evolution is almost universally accepted by those who understand it, almost universally rejected by those who don't." It's a slightly pithy quote, but all the best quotes are. :)
Either way, yes, I concur that if we got a clear radio signal from a remote planet that indicated some signs of intelligence, the thoughtful conclusion would be that there was an intelligence at the originating end of that.
On the other hand, if we had multiple disparate and/or plagiaristic books written some decades after the alleged existence of a man claiming (perhaps posthumously) to be a god, whose activities in life aren't correlated by any historians of the day, whose teachings provide no insights into our world that weren't already understood by contemporary humans, includes some parochial (eg stars falling to the earth) misunderstandings of the universe, and offering guides on (for example) how to manage your slaves ... that this isn't necessarily in the same ballpark as prime numbers from a distant galaxy.
To be candid, it worries me that we may be disagreeing over the import and relevance of this, because it means we really have no common base on which to continue a dialog.
Somewhat similarly, I'm not going to cop-out with the anthropomorphic universe, other than to draw the usual analogy to the puddle that finds itself in a hole perfectly shaped to fit itself, and concluding the hole was designed for it.
Obviously we're suited to this universe, with the various fundamental physical constants (etc) that this universe entails.
But ... as I've said before, if you can't explain something today it doesn't mean a god was involved (or, as you put it, that the universe was 'intended').
Let alone that a specific - in this case Christian deity - was responsible.
All you've done there -- similar to your 'turtles all the way down' disparagement -- is to suggest that there's some (no-evidence-for) metaphysical explanation, and asserted that the clear winner is the religion you happen to have acquired. (Yes, I know we spoke of this before, and you mentioned in passing that you were tongue-in-cheek about shopping around, but there's a LOT of religions that have previously out-numbered in absolute and/or relative numbers Christians today. My concerns on this front still stand -- most people inherit their religion, and they may rationalise that using whatever conveniences are to hand, but it doesn't detract from the fact that almost all religious people reflect the beliefs that they were indoctrinated with as a child. There's some good research on the evolutionary benefits (survival trait) for children to believe everything their parents tell them, long before they acquire critical thinking skills.)
As Hitchens observed on this front -- we can conservatively speculate that humans existed (in a form we'd recognise as humans) for around 100,000 years BC (if you will), and during all that time of suffering no intervention from an omnipresent god. Then (and rather than popping into a more advanced civilisation (China, say)) there was a guy who may not have actually existed, claiming (and perhaps only after the fact, and by proxy, and fairly inconsistently when you compare Mark and Luke[3]) to meet some Jewish prophecies, was purported to arrive to solve this problem of suffering. However, suffering continues in pretty much the same ways that it did pre-JC.
> I feel a need for forgiveness from my creator deeply and innately, but I have no idea how I got there ...
I really have no idea on how I could, let alone should, respond to that. It clearly reflects a fundamental disparity in the way that we view the world. I have a feeling that we could never reconcile it without compromising our belief / understanding frameworks.
> ... I'd like to believe that I'd still be interested in being a good person ...
Trying not to quote you out of context.
I think we're all (for large but perhaps not 100% inclusive values of) interested in being good people.
Long before Spacey, K. was pretending to be a lunatic US president (and long before it was fashionable to play such a role in real life) he was in a massively under-rated film called K-Pax. (Not just a grossly under-rated film, but few people know that Gene Brewer wrote 3 sequels to that story ... all wonderful reads.)
Anyhoo, there's a lovely comment that Prot makes in the first film / book: 'Every being in the universe knows right from wrong'.
I have zero evidence for it, but I tend to think it makes sense in the context of a larger (say, galactic-sized) culture -- once you've evolved sufficiently to abstract yourself into another being's position, it's (relatively) easy to identify right from wrong.
At the most basic it's the reciprocity law -- do unto others, if you will. It predates JC's teachings by at least 500 years, documented in China, and the idea almost definitely existed as a proposition for a happy society before that, and in multiple other locations. It's not a particularly difficult idea to come up with, I think (though that's said with the benefit of having other people previously come up with it).
Btw, I'm hugely appreciative of the time, effort, and thought you put into this - even if I may (I suspect) appear massively disparaging. As noted before, I'm obviously not about to change my position, nor are you likely to. I chuckled out loud at the 'What am I missing?' comment - and genuinely delight in your comments, your understanding of my viewpoint, and regret that at some point HN is going to lock this thread to read-only.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
I actually think it's more tolerant and consistent with reality to let each Christian define their own beliefs, and not to assume any single unifying belief.
Any attempt by me, to generalize about your beliefs, will be offensive to you. Straw man fallacy and all that. I won't have any means of knowing whether I'm right or wrong, without actually sharing in your beliefs. And if I agree to some set of beliefs, those might be offensive to the next Christian whom I talk to. And so forth.
Likewise, why would you agree to a description of your religion that casts it in a negative light?
All I really care about is how people treat one another. I have kind of a simple checklist for religions: How do they treat women? How do they deal with reproduction and sexuality? How do they deal with science? How do they treat doubters and non-believers?
As a lifelong atheist, I've noticed the resurgence in Anglo nations of religion, post 9/11, overwhelmingly from the US. Part of it is due to the grassroots movement in the US by conservative christians to dictate school curriculae, an explicit move started in the mid-80s that would be bearing fruit around the turn of the century, but mostly it seems to be a response and counter-response to that one terrorist attack. Whether it's people turning to religion for comfort, or people defending the religion of minorities to fight for their civil rights, religion has been back on the main card since 2001, whereas in the decade previously, secularism was only getting stronger.
Is religion much more in the mainstream now? From what I see, not much over the past 10-15 years, but definitely more than in the 90s. Trump isn't the only US politician to talk about God in speeches - in fact, you can usually tell whether or not a speech was performed by an American politician simply if it mentions god (and frequently!).
> Where I am from (New Zealand) a lot of Christians I have spoken with are appalled by Trump and don't buy into the whole "Gawd Bless Americuh" narrative
Outside of the US, fundamentalist christians are much thinner on the ground, though they are around.
> No political agenda can encapsulate who Jesus of Nazareth was and what he came to do.
The interaction of humans = politics. Even if all you want to do is heal the sick, that is your political agenda.
The exact opposite has happened in terms of numbers. You may be right that it's become more visible, but I think that might be more of a backlash against other changes like gay rights and sexual openness than a response to 9/11. This is the "bandwagon" that put bush in the white house 9 months earlier.
For a perspective on other countries, I'm French and thought religion was a dead thing of history until I was 14 and went to Ireland in a family, I used to think it was part of history like the second world war and the revolution.
Religiosity in the US is declining and has been for decades; that's also, AFAIK, been true of the rest of the "Anglo nations". You may have noticed the radicalization of a highly visible subset of the Christian population (in part as a rearguard action against advancing secularism, and in part in response to the perceived threat of Islam), but that's not the same as a resurgence of religion.
How do you figure? Trump is the least religious Republican candidate ever, and the Republicans today are far more accepting of LGBT issues than ever before.
Trump was elected by a working class that had been left behind by the status quo...
I'm sure some of this was class issues. Anecdotally, of the people I know in the extended family that were both Trump supporters and of strong Christian faith, the Trump vote seemed either to be single-issue voting (eg abortion), or what I gathered was more just general cultural alignment. The later sort of ties into class: religion and class can go hand in hand.
The biggest question is whether this strong tie in America of "Christianity=evangelical", and the strong political stances this often evokes, damages the Christian brand overall here. It's possible: there's a pretty clear trend especially among younger people towards secularization, and seemingly hypocritical stances might be one of the reasons for this (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas...).
I kind of see this uptick more related to the liberal intellectuals' (rightful) consternation with the persecution of religious minorities that hasn't really stopped in modern times, as one would hope- for instance, with the treatment of Jewish people well into the 20th century and the rise of Islamophobia in recent days.
The article discusses the persecution of early Christians by Roman emperors before Constantine, so I thought it was more relevant to Trump's muslim ban. I don't see him as a Christian emperor that is, rather the opposite. He's definitely more Diocletian than Constantine.
Btw I'm a bit surprised at the article's statement that the persecution of Christians was not as big as we think these days. In the article itself, there's at least three distinct periods where Christians suffered severe consequences for their faith. That's not exactly something you brush off lightly, in my humble etc.
The ancient religions in the Levant were basically this. Each city-state had its own deity, and when you went to any city, you were expected to worship the local god.
This changed when the Babylonian empire overthrew the ancient kingdom of Israel, ended the promised 'Eternal dynasty' of king David after just a couple generations, and exiled the priests.
This led to the writing of the book of Job, from one side, and to the dissociation of the deity from the city, as the priests lost their homeland.
I see the current developments as a 'regression to the mean'.
Not at all, Christianity has always been practiced as a social and political construct as well as a spiritual one. That's the core of it's power. Earthly institutions don't persist for thousands of years otherwise.
You really need to look at more ancient practices that are further away from modern practice and politics. Places like England and France were transformed from a collection of warring barbarian bands to nations by the cultural standardization brought by christianity. Later reforms were driven by schisms like the reformation and other things.
IMO you have the cause and effect here completely backwards.
There's a limit to how large your kingdom can be if people are repeating your orders and those of your court from memory.
Zip ahead to US colonization. Why did people come to North America? In many, if not most cases it was to escape religious prosecution or the blowback relating to that persecution.
That's a common western viewpoint. I wonder how the 'warring barbarian bands' felt about the 'cultural standardization'.
Check out the story of Alfred the Great in England. The story of England and the UK is the story of Christianity's development. The Saxon, Welsh and Norse pagans were certainly and rightfully not happy with how that transitioned, but ultimately the outcome was almost certainly for the better.
Believing in a god is one thing and everyone can decide if they wanna do this. I personally don't believe in any higher being. I don't think it matters to my life in any way.
But believing in in a book, found 100 years after 0 (...) going to church, believing that there is a son of god who decided to come to earth exactly when he decided it and not anytime before or any time after and ignoring all other believes and cultures like celts which are older is just stupid.
We are not those people from 2000 years ago who need Christianity to explain shit to us. Religion hinders us to become a united world. A world who builds its values on living on the same fucking planet.
Most of us in the modern West only understand the religion ancient Israel through the texts that have survived in the Bible, but there are a number of other surviving works, fragments, and archaeological evidence that provide clues about religious practice in that time. (For example, one prominent text that Barker frequently draws on is the Book of Enoch, which was considered canonical by many Jewish communities in the time of Christ --- and actually still is by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church --- and was cited in the Letter of Jude.) Of course, a lot of this research is necessarily somewhat conjectural, but it was fascinating to read about why exactly there was so much messianic fervor in the Levant in the time of Christ.
https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/lost-christianities?tn=H...
I see that modern gnostics are just as stupid and ignorant as the original ones. On your side are a few fragments written far too late to be eyewitness testimony, let alone containing anything of worth. On mine are thousands of copies that appear fully formed, the earliest ones with negligible distance from the events they describe, with boatloads of references to history and geography that we can check out. These accounts move through history unchanged. Within a generation or two church authors are vigorously defending their authenticity and core teachings against sceptics and gnostics.
> If you think the Bible as we know it isn't the product of human politics more than anything else, you need to educate yourself.
Yeah right. Here's this marginal peasant from a scummy town in an unknown corner of the Roman empire with an extremely questionable birth narrative. He says and does outrageous things that are hard to understand, mixes with the lowest of society and is eventually executed in the most shameful way possible for blasphemy. And this rural redneck claims to be God in human form? That's real convincing I must say.
Says you. The textual evidence says otherwise. The gospel of Judas for example has a sole surviving copy dated ~300AD. Irenaeus mentions it around 180AD as being the usual gnostic load of shite. So we don't even know whether we have the original text. It's about as reliable as my personal eyewitness account of the French Revolution that I wrote last week, that is to say, not at all. The gospel of Thomas leaves an equally pathetic mark on history and was only discovered in the 1940s. Clearly a divine text for the ages! Or perhaps not.
"by people closer to Jesus."
History seems to be silent on who these people actually were. Any ideas? In fact, history seems to be really, really quiet on the gnostics in general. They clearly scuttled away and didn't say much when their faith was challenged.
"Why were they excluded, while all of Paul's crap thrown in? Politics."
No, because they weren't eyewitnesses, clearly borrowed FROM the canonical gospels and not the other way around, and have nothing new to add that isn't the moronic mystical mutterings of idle urbanites.
"His was a vision of Christianity suitable to those in power in 367CE."
Gnonsense. There was no "vision" of Christianity when Paul was around - it was a very simple call to worship the resurrected man Jesus and obey what he commanded. How did it grow from twelve followers to become the official religion of Rome in just a few hundred years? The article deliberately avoids the real reason: early believers were convinced that their teacher had risen from the dead and could prove it. If not, Christianity would not have survived a few months, let alone become one of the foundations of Western civilization on Earth.
"Again, instead of violating the rules by calling people stupid, please learn the actual facts."
Point me at the two thousand years of gnostic-driven civilization, science and culture and I'll think about it although I see you've carefully not answered my earlier points so my hopes aren't high.
This is common folklore, but the claim does not appear in the Bible, and everything in the Bible or in any other source implies that "Saul" was his Hebrew name and "Paul"/"Paulus" was his Greek/Latin name, each used when around people who spoke that language. It just so happens that before his conversion, he basically was only ever around Israel, and afterwards, he preached to the other parts of the Roman Empire.
Taking two names in two languages was a common practice at the time, and remains a common practice; nobody claims that Piyush Jindal took the name Bobby when he converted to Christianity.
The only Google result for that is some RTF of a sermon or something. Can you provide a chapter and verse?
The first half of what you quote ("why persecutest thou Me") occurs twice, once in Acts 9:4 and once in Acts 22:7, but neither time is it followed by "And from that time, Saul was changed to Paul".
> But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him
"Many mistakenly assume the Lord changed Saul's name to Paul sometime after Saul converted from Judaism to Christianity, which happened during his encounter with Christ on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19). Unlike the instance of Jesus changing Simon's name to Kepha (Gk. Petros) as a way of signifying the special role he would play in the Church (Mt 16:18, Jn 1:41-42), in Paul's case there was no name change.
Saul of Tarsus was born a Jew, "circumcised on the eight day, of the race of Israel, or the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, in observance of the law a Pharisee" (Phil 3:5). The Hebrew name given him by his parents was Saul, but, because his father was a Roman citizen (and therefore Saul inherited Roman citizenship), Saul also had the Latin name Paul (Acts 16:37, 22:25-28), the custom of dual names being common in those days. Since he grew up in a strict Pharisee environment, the name Saul was by far the more appropriate name to go by. But after his conversion Saul determined to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, so he dusted off his Roman name and became known as Paul, a name Gentiles were accustomed to."
https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-did-god-change-sauls-name-to...
Stark is mostly interested in the period of time between Jesus and Constantine and brings a ton of historical and sociological evidence to bear on the question. A really amazing book. Learned a lot about Rome from it.
Abolitionism
Women's rights
Prison reform
Radically elevated role of individual conscience (inner light)
They were into all those things way before it was cool.
I see modern day divestment campaigns, ethical sourcing of goods and materials, and even "socially conscious" business in general ("Effect change in the world" / "make a difference") as direct descendants of the Quaker approach to abolitionism - "It is beginning to be seen that they must despise the gain of oppression, and deny themselves the blood-bought sweets and the blood-stained cotton that has come through this corrupt channel."
Look up the Quaker approach to capitalism.
From a bit of reading it seems like their definition of womeens rights was quite different to how most people today would use the term. Quite controversial at the time too. A quote from wikipedia:
> Also particularly within the relatively prosperous Quaker communities of the eastern United States, the focus on the child and "holy conversation" gave women unusual community power, although they were largely excluded from the market economy. With the Hicksite–Orthodox split of 1827–1828, Orthodox women found their spiritual role decreased, while Hicksite women retained greater influence.
Correct my if I'm wrong, I know very little about quakers, but that sounds a lot like women were expected to remain barefoot and pregnant.
And that they're also trying to appropriate human progress for themself, but now we know the real achivements of Greeks and Romans, surpassed only by early XX century. They managed without.
My wife says: "But you personally have no other culture to belong to". That doesn't make me happier.
> in 324, he extended similarly pro-Christian policies to the eastern empire, where he not only favoured Christians, but actively discriminated against non-Christians, restricting their ability to worship or fund their temples.
And it mostly went downhill from that.
When you're righting over religion, people are very reluctant to convert (which is usually a sin), and to accept the converted, so it ends with cleansings and genocide. Same thing with ethnic conflicts, but they're religion-driven more often than not.
If those two things aren't identical, then you have two or more different substantove belief systems that happen tobshare a common label; it's inaccurate to judge everything going under the label by either the founding philosophy or any of the later incarnations; they are separate things that must be judged separately.
We assume that we should stick with that Jesus considered right. But we can't ask him, so we have to interpret whatever sacred texts available. We assume that only one interpretation is correct and all other are sinfully wrong.
This is a fertile ground for conflict. Everyone has their own interpretation but pretends that they all share it. Ultimately it's the Highlander, when just one Christian is to stay alive over dogma.
This is actually stricter than Islam where conflicts over interpretation are explicitly discouraged, and indeed there's less of those. However Islam is even less tolerant to "live and let live".
The solution, IMO, is stop considering one person "the one", and get rid of sacred texts.
The 'pagan' Romans were astounded at the intolerance and dogma of the Christians. They were used to absorbing other ethnicities pantheons into their own. While they had all sorts of chauvinistic and tribalistic beliefs, they never believed -- until Christianity -- that they had the answers for all human kind.
Christianity is the origin of 'religion' as we think of it now. It has altered the lens of how we perceive all belief systems, so we accept as normal the concept of an all-encompassing totalizing system of transcendent explanation.
Whether you think its explanations are right or not, this is a unique property historically. And Islam inherited this philosophy.
Even more profound is the extreme intolerance that Christianity fostered _within itself_. Many thousands lost their _lives_ for interpreting the some aspect the Trinity, or the relationship of the Father to the Son differently from what became accepted as official dogma. Very technical language and very specific interpretations of this language controlled the fate of nations and the lives of millions.
Heck, getting back to the topic, even in Jesus' time there were various messianic and mystery cults within Judaism. Christianity just won... But even then there were all sorts of crazy beliefs, like that of reincarnation, which was surprisingly popular in the ancient Christian (pre-Nicene) world...
No, it's not. Religious identity may be a focus of tribalism, but religion is more than identity.
> Not like we wouldn't replace it with something equally stupid, like rioting and fighting each other over politics... At least religion includes a sort of morality as part of the deal.
So does politics; every political ideology, like every religious ideology, is exactly a "sort of morality". Actually, there's often a content overlap between political and religious ideologies (and often a political ideology subsumes an expressly religious one, or vice versa.)
Disregarding facts is and should considered to be immoral.
But you can very well have "good intentions" while doing so.
Of course, followers of different sorts of morality often view it as immoral; that's inherent in conflict between moral systems.
1)
The 'monotheistic' religions, particularly Christianity and Buddhism (though Buddhism is not exactly 'monotheistic' it's not 'pantheist' in the classical sense) - represented a fundamental shift from pantheism.
It's wrong to claim that 'Pantheism = many gods' and 'Monotheism = one god'. This the literal meaning, but it's not remotely accurate.
Pantheistic gods were almost always a soap opera of 'super human like' people who loved, fought and interacted with each other like a superior cast of beings.
'Pray to me and I'll smote your enemy'
'Give me offerings or I'll hurt you'.
Montheism wasn't just about having 'one god' - monotheistic religions were about ideas not so much rites and rituals (as mentioned in the article). Particularly - monotheistic religions required moral and conscientious behaviour.
Jesus had only two commands: 'Love God and love one another'. In a more secular sense that could be 'Recognize the divine and knowing that - do your best with what you have to make the world a better place'.
Buddhists are required to be 'more enlightened' and more civilized people lest they be reincarnated as animals, if they want to 'escape the cycle of reincarnation'.
Christian and Buddhist religions centre around moral philosophies at least in terms of how they apply to the real world.
The Christian God is not a 'bearded buy in the sky' (even though he is often presented as such). He's 'unknowable' and completely transcends our understanding. 'I am that I am'. This is not like the Greek gods who all have very tangible attributes and are mostly interested in human like things - i.e. power.
Similarly, though Buddhists are technically 'atheists' in that they don't have a 'God' per say - they do have a kind of 'monotheism' in that they present very specific ideals of 'nothingness' etc.. They definitely present a metaphysical construct for us. And it's not a bunch of angry super-dudes.
Monotheism is a huge leap forward in terms of our metaphysical evolution.
2)
It's not fair to use the word 'exclusive' so many times in this text.
The most powerful element of Christianity is that it was open to anyone. For the first time slaves were equal to kings. This was a very, very powerful idea, and obviously scared the bananas out of the elite.
Status and class were clearly delineated in terms of class in Greek mythology. Higher status = more 'godliness'. That's an artifact of human culture ... but it's rejected in Christianity (and Buddhism).
Your 'status' in Christianity is dependant on how good you are, not 'how much money you have'. For the first time, you couldn't just buy your way out of bad deeds (at least in theory, obviously not in practice, quite often).
Christians were the first international solidarity movement. They were the first 'social movement of equal peoples'. The first to feed the poor as moral action, not just a political action. Moreover - they were organized. What the article failed to mention was that Constantine had a political motivation to be Christian because he could leverage the international network of organized and efficient non-state bureaucracy that the Christians had. Their 'system' had efficiency on some level - and authenticity.
A strict historical articulation of the facts, I think fails to illustrate what it was that made Christianity so widespread.
I think the key to understanding is that 'common era' religions such as Christianity and Buddhism are completely unlike their predecessors.
I think you should take a look at judaism.
> Christians were the first international solidarity movement. They were the first 'social movement of equal peoples'. The first to feed the poor as moral action, not just a political action.
The greeks would like to have a word on that one.
> I think the key to understanding is that 'common era' religions such as Christianity and Buddhism are completely unlike their predecessors.
There are oh-so-many parallels and straight up plagiarisms in christianity I don't know how you can say that and back it up. The truth is all religions are evolutions from the ones before, adapted to fit in with their times.
I get what you are saying - but Judaism was the religion that went through the gambit to produce Christianity.
Yes - Yahweh in the old days, was very much like a 'Greek God'. Arguably, he's just one of the pantheon of those gods! After all - 'Bal' the God of the Canaanites, kind of 'existed' and Yahweh was just 'more badass' than him.
But Judaism evolved and provided the foundation for what I described. Yahweh went from a 'personified entity' to basically 'an unknowable centre'. In practice, today - the Jews have a powerfully distinct moral motivation built into their religion. Rabbis have long been an important source of intellectual and motivation for a lot of people.
"The Greeks would like to have a word with you"
The Greek philosophers, yes, the religionists, no. And if you'd argue that some of these social ideals are 'Greek founded' - I'll give you that argument. But it was the Christians who got people inspired, and into to it for real. Not the Greeks. Otherwise, Constantine would have bought into a different religion.
"There are oh-so-many parallels and straight up plagiarisms in christianity I don't know how you can say that and back it up."
The difference between Greek polytheism and Christianity is more than obvious.
Aside from some obvious creation-myth overlaps borrowed from other Mesopotamian/Egyptian stories, if you actually look at the Bible (New Testament) page by page, it's so much like any other religion that one can even wonder how they can be compared.
Buddhist, Christian and Muslim works are a totally different ballgame than the works before them. At least in religious terms. And at least in the West, the Asian lineage is not so clear I suppose.
> Aside from some obvious creation-myth overlaps borrowed from other Mesopotamian/Egyptian stories, if you actually look at the Bible (New Testament) page by page, it's so much like any other religion that one can even wonder how they can be compared.
Just off the top of my head, Dionysus turning water into wine at least a century before Jesus.
You keep wanting to make christianity something special when in reality it is just another amalgamation of beliefs and rituals from the area at the time (and since, christmas, easter, halloween, because it has not stopped evolving). It just happens to be the one that "won".
Well, since there are no 'Christian rituals' in the New Testament, because Christianity did not exist at the time, I'm going to assume that you have not read it.
From cover to cover, there's nothing Greek, Roman or Egyptian that resembles the New Testament, it doesn't even resemble the Old Testament. Arguably, it's closer to the Koran, or other Eastern works.
And if you think it's about a (cherry picked) handful of similarities and borrowed 'magic powers' story bits like a'water into wine' or a 'Horus-like nativity story', then you're missing the point anyhow.
At the time of the stories relayed in the Gospels, sure. The rest of the NT, from Acts on—but excluding Revelation—is either narrative about or discussion within the early Christian community.
OTOH, I think it is correct that it doesn't describe Christian ritual to any significant degree.
See? classic case of cherry picking. You probably don't consider baptism a ritual, or the allegory of Yom Kippur a ritual. Or drinking wine and eating bread. You just read it like you want to.
> And if you think it's about a (cherry picked) handful of similarities and borrowed 'magic powers' story bits like a'water into wine' or a 'Horus-like nativity story', then you're missing the point anyhow.
Yes, forget that all the miracles of Jesus were "borrowed" from earlier gods, forget that all the life of Jesus is a carefully scripted retelling of the tales of the old testament. In fact, lest forget all the pieces that don't fit with your uniqueness narrative. After all, the point of the book is what you said it is, there is no one in the world who would read it any other way.
Going back to what edblarney said above, "Jesus had two commands; love God and love one another". Christianity, in its purest form, is unique in that it gives salvation away completely free. We are not required to do anything, only to believe that we require forgiveness and to have faith that God will give it freely. The act of Jesus' sacrifice being a demonstration that in fact God has already forgiven every one of us, and that all we need do is recognize it. If you believe that, you will, naturally want to live your life according to some notion of christian ethics, but striving to do "good" in whatever way you like is in no way a requirement for salvation.
All the rituals -- baptism, spiritual giftings, recognition of the sabbath, circumcision -- there are a ton of them -- are trappings of religious authoritarianism if they are incorporated as requirements for salvation. I know lots of churches and denomination do this (or come perilously close), and it is quite unbiblical.
By the usual restrictive mainstream definition of Christianity by reference to the early creeds, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, (most) Protestant Churches, and a number of independent (often ancient) churches, many of which are styled "Catholic" but have no current and often no past association with Rome, are all Christian.
I know nothing about the Orthodox churches.
You probably mean the Roman Catholic Church (the usual particular name for the Church composed of 24 sui iuris particular churches united by various unifying factors, including recognizing the Bishop of Rome—the same one that is head of state of Vatican City—as head of the church.)
Big-C Catholic is a bad descriptor for that, because there are quite a lot of big-C Catholic Churches which are not in union with Rome, and have varying degrees of dissimilarity in theology, ritual, and law when compared to the Roman Catholic Church.
> The idols (incendiary term, I know), the various levels of hell, the duties and bribes to church officials in return for forgiveness.
Aside from the false bit about idols, you've mentioned, in order, a feature of a popular work of medieval literature that has never been a matter of Catholic doctrine, and what seems (though it's hard to tell what specifically it intends to refer to) to be a oblique reference to a combination of abusive practices and erroneous (compared to the official doctrine) teachings about indulgences that were frequently criticized by Church leaders prior to Luther and fairly definitively addressed in and shortly after the Council of Trent.
> I know nothing about the Orthodox churches.
The same appears to be true of the Roman Catholic Church.
Now that's exactly what I am calling 'cherry picking'.
As (barely) a Protestant - I don't see any of those other things as 'rituals' of any relevance.
If you throw in 'wine and bread' - you have two. Wow. Two whole rituals.
I'd argue that it's you that are 'seeing what you want to see'.
Nobody would deny that many elements of Jesus story are borrowed for other narratives.
Just as nobody would imply that the New Testament is 'just an amalgamation of a bunch of other stuff'.
Ironically, both examples you gave: 'Baptism' and 'Wine and Bread' - are not based on some 'borrowed ideas' - they are effectively original in their own context.
> Ok, you have 'baptism' as one ritual in 500 pages, which by the way, is originally a Jewish thing anyhow.
> Ironically, both examples you gave: 'Baptism' and 'Wine and Bread' - are not based on some 'borrowed ideas' - they are effectively original in their own context.
This is the main problem. You contradict yourself on every point.
Baptism is a ritual, but the only baptism in the Bible (that I can recall) is pre-Christian. It has a relation to the Christian ritual, but is not a Christian ritual.
> or the allegory of Yom Kippur a ritual.
Not a Christian ritual.
> Or drinking wine and eating bread.
The Last Supper may be the closest thing to a Christian ritual in the Bible, since that account is he really held to be the establishment of a key Christian ritual (though not generally as an instance of the ritual this established.)
> Not a Christian ritual.
Yom Kippur is not christian per se, what I was talking about is the allegory of Yom Kippur, namely easter and the killing of Jesus in the name of the lamb that is "celebrated" each year.
'I am that I am' was said by Jesus who ate, defecated and did everything else like any other human being, and he is considered being the God by Christians, so he's very much like the Greek gods walking around the Earth all the time, eating with humans. Read the Odyssey.
Even more so, the act of Jesus' mother being impregnated by the God is something that Zeus did in many many occasions (producing god-children with the human mothers) and was retold for centuries before Christ exactly in the areas where the Christian myths started to spread. The impregnation story is obviously an one-upmanship one (well my God is a son of God too!) and not present in the earliest Gospel.
Once that simple one-upmanship trick got to be popular, there was a need to explain the logic of God producing a child who's still himself while not directly being involved in the sex act (which would be too dirty for the God), and the Trinity was invented: the God is at the same time the father, the son and the holy ghost, the third one, the most 'transcendental' one, the only one being involved in the sex act.
Learning about the ancient Greek gods helps making sense of a lot of weird Jewish and Christian stories. Also learning about the Mesopotamian and Egyptian gods and stories.
First - "I am that I am" is God - to Moses. Not Jesus.
And by the way - that very line betrays your argument: the Monotheistic 'God' is nothing like Zeus, who would never say something so abstract :). Zeus was knowable. 'God' is a metaphysical concept.
And no - Jesus not 'like the Greek gods because he 'ate and defecated'.
Zeus was a powerful war lord, who ran around screwing women, got pissed off at others, demanded offerings - he was not a moral example, nor did he demand morality. He was like a superhuman Chieftain.
Zeus was the Donald Trump of religions. (Bad joke).
Jesus wanted his followers to 'have faith and love one another' - and not necessarily make offerings, worry about money, or get too involved in rituals. All are equal before God, and are judged for their actions - not their power, money or social status. Yada, yada, yada. Nothing like the Zeusinator.
There are really few if any theological similarities between Zeus and Jesus. They are 'far apart' on the religion scale :)
"earning about the ancient Greek gods helps explaining a lot of weird Jewish and Christian stories. Also learning about the Mesopotamian and Egyptian gods and stories."
Yes - some bits of narrative are similar, and the 'nativity' bit is a rather common theme in the era. But it's not about the 'magic tricks' :).
Put another way: Greek pantheism is about the Greek Gods. Christianity is about the teachings of a man (or son of god, or god incarnate, depending on ...)
And finally - a lot of formal Christian groups that do not believe Jesus was a God. That's been a big debate since the beginning i.e. Nicaeae etc. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_(biblical_term)
> There are really few if any theological similarities between Zeus and Jesus. They are 'far apart' on the religion scale
To properly compare you have to compare Yahweh, the god from Jewish scriptures (a.k.a the Old Testament for the Christians, for who Yahweh is a father-god) and Zeus, the Greek father god. Both are hungry for the animal sacrifices. The God personally visits Abraham who prepares a meal (freshly baked bread and flesh) for him and the God eats, under a tree. Not "transcendent" at all.
For their children: Jesus, the son of the God and a human mother, and Heracles, the son of the God and a human mother. Heracles rises to Olympus as he dies, unlike the other mortals, just like Jesus rises to heaven.
And both Jesus and Heracles visit Hades (Hell) only to get out of there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell
Learning about the Greek gods is really enlightened.
By the way, the name of the Jewish father-god is Yahweh, and "Jesus" comes from the Greek "Iesous" rendition of a Hebrew common name "Yehoshua" (Joshua) which means "Yahweh is salvation." Also a convenient element for the later "the father is also a son" idea. Only, there were a lot of Joshuas living around for more centuries.
And yes, I agree - 'Yahweh' from Jewish antiquity is more comparable to Zeus, for sure. (Though Yahweh evolved a lot over time, and was something else by the time Jesus came)
But you were comparing Jesus to Zeus. Those two are not very comparable.
Zeus belongs in the Egyptian/Roman/Mesopotamian camp. a little bit like Yahweh.
Jesus belongs more with Buddha, and Mohammed.
The former were 'myths to believe that explained things', the later were 'historical figures' and 'teachers' of 'how we ought to be as moral and spiritual beings'. These are very different eras, different kinds of religions, is my whole point.
FYI - that's why in 2016 there are tons of Buddhists, Muslims and Christians, and basically zero followers of 'Zeus'. Which further validates 'how different Jesus is to Zeus & Co'
The Christians actually call that what you call "Jewish antiquity" "the Old Testament." And they don't pronounce the name of the God, just like Jews stopped doing that, but only after names like "Yehoshua" (Joshua and Jesus) and "Yohanan" (John) (both constructed from Yahweh) already became common.
This simple "his name can't be told" rule is the primary spark for the whole "transcendental" buildup and people naming "the only" "God" for any formally unrelated belief. And the Jews got that idea (keep the name secret) from the Egyptians.
> But you were comparing Jesus to Zeus.
No, check for yourself, I have explicitly compared the father of Jesus with Zeus, Zeus being the inseminator just like Jesus' father.
> Jesus belongs more with Buddha, and Mohammed.
No, Mohammad was a jealous supremacist murderous warlord, killing hundreds of people even after they surrender, torturing the captives, taking the female slaves as sex slaves, ordering the killings for revenge to somebody making some funny poems about him, ordering stonings of others for having extramarital sex, but for himself organizing "legal" sex with a 9-year old, inventing special messages from God to allow him having more wives than other Muslims etc (all documented in the religious texts). Jesus was just an apocalyptic religious hippie announcing that "the end is coming soon" who died once he tried to cause the change in the middle of Jerusalem, the governmental, financial and religious center of Judea at the peak of its yearly activity (overturning the tables in the "banks" there effectively(1)).
Buddha is not comparable to both Jesus and Mohammad, as Buddha was the one who recognized that he can chose to not believe in the religious dogma of his environment (Hinduism) and be free and happy instead, not ending in the Hindu equivalent of Hell (which was for them "being reborn again") but simply dying (which is called the "nirvana" -- simply ending being "blown out" like a candle, that's the meaning of that word). But the Buddhists, conveniently for them, made a new religious dogma out of Buddha.
----
1) The term "bank" actually comes from Italian "banca" which simply means "the table" -- the tables were used as "the banks" to perform the money transactions in the old times. Jesus actually disrupted the banks in the city. Which were very stressed at the Passover, the time he decided to do it. But it wouldn't be enough to sentence him to death, the reason for that was that there were the witnesses who confirmed him claiming to be the "King of the Jews" -- he was sentenced for leading the "regime change" during the times of the festival. By the oldest Gospel, Jesus, poor believer, didn't understand why the God didn't intervene then ("Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?")
1) You were comparing Jesus to the Greek gods, not 'The Father of Jesus'. That's your quote right there.
2) You're a little off on your 'comparative religion'.
Jesus, Mohamed and Buddha were human beings, who were spiritual teachers, not quite 'gods' (although many people consider Christ 'God incarnate' - he was ultimately human as well.).
We follow Jesus, Mohamed and Buddhist teachings, and spiritual which are all 'monotheistic' - or in the case of Buddhism, not quite 'theist' but nevertheless a singular presentation of a 'higher concept'.
This is fundamentally different from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman religions.
I am not saying that 'Jesus is the same as Mohammed and the Buddha' - I am saying that they are all basically Common Era religions which are in a different category than the others.
Your comments about Mohammed are incomplete to the point of misrepresentation. Yes - he did some crazy things, but he also said many more good things, and his writing is in fact quite beautiful.
Finally - you picked a very poor example of how Jesus is different than Buddha: "as Buddha was the one who recognized that he can chose to not believe in the religious dogma of his environment"
Jesus indeed, asked his followers to not get caught up in dogma as well and simply 'have faith'. In a manner of speaking, that's pretty close to accepting divine notions of 'nirvana'.
Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Basically he is saying 'all the other religious stuff doesn't matter' - this two things are what matters.
There are many other similar quotes where he calls out the 'hypocrisy' of certain Pharisee acts.
So in fact - Jesus and the Buddha are pretty similar at least on that point.
Summary:
Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed - Common Era human beings who are Spiritual Teachers: followers do as they say.
Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian polytheistic Gods and myths - a soap opera of 'super humans' doing various things. There's no moral philosophy or spiritual premise, though you do get some metaphysical ideals I guess.
Your claim that Jesus is "ultimately human" and at the same time that Mohammad "wrote" "beautiful" things leaves me wondering how much you actually know about the religions.
Even if you belong to, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, you have to be aware that a) your denomination didn't exist before 1870s and the rest of the Christians believe in Jesus the God for at least 17 centuries b) your beliefs are distinct from the mainstream Christianity and c) your number is minute compared to all other Christians.
Can you please specify which Mohammad's "writing is in fact quite beautiful"? What have you read that Mohammad wrote? Thanks.
I guess I'm a little confused about what you think a good answer to your question would address, beyond the obvious fact that the author didn't decide to write about Islam.
My point is that the current trend is to shit on Christianity and praise Islam.
b. Synchronicity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13585873