The Case for Christianity

[Brunswick1954]

The Great Commandment
When asked which is the great commandment of the law, Jesus answered,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and first commandment.
And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
(Matthew 22:37–40)

We have seen that believing in Logos is to believe in God. According to John, God is the logic or rationality behind the universe. Indeed, the early development of modern science in the West was significantly shaped by Christian theological ideas, and was supported and nurtured within Christian institutions, especially universities. For many early scientists, like Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, and Francis Bacon, science was a way to better understand the mind and work of God. Einstein is often quoted as saying, "God does not play dice."

The significance of Logos is that it applies to us as well. Nature, to us, is the living things in nature - the plants and animals. The weather, sometimes referred to as the elements - the sun, wind, seasons, day and night - is also included because it changes and seems alive as well. Thus, the Natural Law, according to the Greeks, are laws about how to live, i.e. morality.

In Matthew 25:31–46 (ESV), Jesus used sheep and goats as metaphors for who will enter into heaven. The criteria used there is that the righteous people are those who fed Jesus, clothed him, and so on. But, the righteous people answered him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?'
And Jesus answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Notice that there's no mention of having to believe in God. One might even suggest that the righteous people don't even know Jesus (God) exists.

More importantly, in another passage, Matthew 7:21–23 (ESV), Jesus said,
21 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"

This is further reflected in the Beatitudes:
Matthew 5:3–12 (ESV)
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Again, no mention of having to believe in God. Indeed, there are several passages in the Bible where God rejected sacrifices and emphasized acts instead.

My understanding, from the Bible, is that you don't have to believe in God in order to get into heaven. God exists, whether you believe it or not. And if you believe that our universe is governed by rules, and that we should live morally, you believe in God, whether you know it or not. And if you live that way, you will go to heaven, whether you want to or not.

 

[Elixir]

if you live that way, you will go to heaven, whether you want to or not.

So yeah, it’s like jail. God basically saying “the torment will continue until morale improves”. I guess if it turns out God was wrong and you don’t like it there, he can still send you to hell if the fancy strikes him. Probably has to do that with lots of these phony evangeloids - they pass initial muster at the Gate, but then get deported a few weeks later for outstanding warrants.
The reason people want to believe in heaven is that at the root, each of us knows we have done nothing that deserves any such magical reward. But hope springs eternal, and the mantis springs forward.

 

[ideologyhunter]

My understanding, from the Bible, is that you don't have to believe in God in order to get into heaven. God exists, whether you believe it or not. And if you believe that our universe is governed by rules, and that we should live morally, you believe in God, whether you know it or not. And if you live that way, you will go to heaven, whether you want to or not.

I find your reasoning to be confusing, and more than that, out of step with 20 centuries of Christian orthodoxy.
Matthew 22: How can you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and not believe in him? And if this is Jesus' "great and first" commandment, then you do indeed have to believe in him. It's the crux of the whole covenant.
Matthew 5 and 7 are from the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus is represented as speaking to a large crowd that had gathered to hear him. My assumption is that -- assuming the sermon ever took place, and is not simply a compendium of sayings -- Jesus took his audience to be devout Jews who did not have to be questioned about their belief in God. Matthew 25:31-46, which details why Trump, Vance and their enablers should be sent to hell at death, was addressed to the disciples, who again would have been baseline believers in Jesus' eyes.
It's fine to believe that a superlative life would qualify for entrance into heaven. I've heard and read quite a few people make that assertion. I don't see how it's borne out in NT teachings. Romans 10:9 states: "...if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Where is the "out" in NT teachings that allows good deeds to excuse unbelief?
You are a nicer person than God's spokespersons in the Bible.

 

[bilby]

Sadly, I don't use my heart for believing stuff at all, it has a full time job pumping blood.

And while I do believe lots of stuff in my brain, "That God raised [Jesus] from the dead" is not part of that stuff.

And, of course, I don't choose what to believe. If Big Brother says that 2+2 is 5, I cannot believe it, no matter how hard I might try, and no matter how often or how passionately I might claim to believe it.

Nor, for much the same definitional reasons, could I believe that anyone died and then un-died; It's part of the definition of "died" that recovery doesn't happen. If someone is declared dead on Friday, and is seen to be alive three days later, on Sunday, then by definition the declaration was premature and erroneous.

Irreversibility defines death; IF a person is alive on Sunday, then even if his heart stopped; he stopped breathing; and his brain activity ceased to be detectable even with the most sensitive modetn equipment on Friday, his status on Friday was "comatose" and not "dead".

That detecting the difference between comatose and dead was difficult in the first century is a massive understatement. It takes no miracle for a person who had been briefly crucified (it was an exemplary punishment, that was supposed to take many agonising days to kill people) to be mistaken for dead, and to then recover, if placed in repose and out of the sun.

If Jesus existed, and was crucified on Good Friday, his being alive on Easter Sunday is a spot of good fortune, but it would take massive levels of gullibility to claim it to be a miracle. Of course, a pre-scientific audience who were primed with other conjouring tricks by a cult leader might well have such levels of naïveté.

 

[DBT]

Eternal damnation doesn't appear to be compatible with a God of love, especially not over a mere lack of conviction.

 

[pood]

The Great Commandment
When asked which is the great commandment of the law, Jesus answered,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and first commandment.
And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
(Matthew 22:37–40)

We have seen that believing in Logos is to believe in God.

Claim not in evidence.

According to John, God is the logic or rationality behind the universe. Indeed, the early development of modern science in the West was significantly shaped by Christian theological ideas, and was supported and nurtured within Christian institutions, especially universities. For many early scientists, like Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, and Francis Bacon, science was a way to better understand the mind and work of God. Einstein is often quoted as saying, "God does not play dice."

You know Einstein was speaking metaphorically, right, and did not believe in a personal god?

Anyhow, it appears that Einstein was wrong, and god does play dice. Still, putting aside quantum mechanics, that fact the universe seems to behave more or less orderly at a macro level is hardly surprising, giving if it were not that way, we would not be around to observe it.

My understanding, from the Bible, is that you don't have to believe in God in order to get into heaven. God exists, whether you believe it or not. And if you believe that our universe is governed by rules, and that we should live morally, you believe in God, whether you know it or not. And if you live that way, you will go to heaven, whether you want to or not.

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

 

[pood]

Anyway, I look forward to when you begin making your case for Christianity.

 

[Elixir]

Eternal damnation doesn't appear to be compatible with a God of love, especially not over a mere lack of conviction.

Appearances can be deceiving, you god damned heretic!
Maybe god LOVES to torture people eternally. Did THAT ever occur to you?
Huh?

 

[Brunswick1954]

@ideologyhunter brought up several good points which are difficult to address quickly. Let's start with the idea of "believing in God". What does that mean? What is this God that we need to believe in? And what does believing in Him mean?

It's a difficult question to answer. It is made all the more difficult when words are themselves at best a pointer to the object. We don't know what orange means unless we have already seen oranges or have something orange in colour to reference. God is not such an object that we can point to it and say that's God.

One way I think might help answer the question is to look at some examples where God is mentioned or described and see what they might be taking about. One of my favourite songs is Anne Murray's In the Garden. She sings about going to a garden early in the morning and hearing God's voice there. God's voice came to her as a melody that's so sweet, the birds hush their singing.

Listening to the song, I can imagine myself in a garden and experiencing the quiet peace of it and the uplifting of the spirit that to me makes me feel close to God, and that a song might spring in my heart. This uplifting experience is not uncommon and many people, experiencing the delight of dawn, would say that they feel close to God then.

The word, inspiration, means God's breath in you. To the ancient mind, to be inspired is to breathe the breath of God and inspiration is not thought of as coming from us but from God.

A great many people still believe in God today. Even highly respected scientists like Francis Collins and John Lennox believe in God and have written books about their beliefs. It is helpful to read their accounts.

For most of them, and most of the time, believing in God often translates into living life in a certain way and differentiating between good and bad, vice and virtue. If you ask them about who or what God is, you might get something about the properties He possess, like being omnipotent or as the creator of the universe, but not a physical description. The significance of believing in God is not so much believing in Him but living your life differently as a result.
Matthew 7:21"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

What I am proposing is that anyone who does the things that Jesus mentioned above do so because they believe in God, whether or not they think of it that way. They believe that people should do these things, and they do it because it's the right and natural thing to do. Believing that the universe is ordered and that it is meaningful to be good is to believe in God.

@pood suggested that God shouldn't make it so hard to guess what He means. I'm suggesting that it's not at all hard. Indeed, it's as simple as it can be. It is so simple, God doesn't even need to explain it. We know what is right or wrong, what is good or bad from the very beginning. Even children know when they're misbehaving and when they're not. Jesus said that we need to be like children if we are to go to heaven. What I take this to mean is that we need to return to that childhood state of innocence, believing that the world is both scary and exciting, and that life is meaningful and worth living. It's the most natural and simple state to be in.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Before one makes a case for Christianity one must define and, in essence, customize one's Christianity. With Mad Libs. This method is superior to a frontal lobe approach, because it allows for divine inspiration. You can prove this for yourself, quite easily.
With pencil and paper, make your word choices on the 8 items listed. After you have made your list, insert them in the hidden text.

1. Pick a noun for an entity that has been entrusted with certain powers.
2. Pick an action verb, ending in d.
3. Pick a noun that names a place.
4. Action verb.
5. Noun -- should be something you can see.
6. Action verb, ending in s.
7. Verb that names a dangerous or fatal action.
8. Pick a positive-sounding adjective.

"For 1.__________so 2._________ 3.__________ that he 4.__________ his only 5.________, that whosoever 6._________ in him should not 7.___________ but have 8._________ life." (John 3:16)

Some of you, through inspiration, will stumble on miraculous new readings of scripture with this method.

 

[pood]

@ideologyhunter brought up several good points which are difficult to address quickly. Let's start with the idea of "believing in God". What does that mean? What is this God that we need to believe in? And what does believing in Him mean?

It's a difficult question to answer. It is made all the more difficult when words are themselves at best a pointer to the object. We don't know what orange means unless we have already seen oranges or have something orange in colour to reference. God is not such an object that we can point to it and say that's God.

Maybe because he doesn’t exist, unlike oranges?

If you want to reduce God to a metaphor for nature and how one can feel awe and reverence before it, because of it, that’s fine. Then God is a metaphor. Christians generally mean something more concrete than that.

 

[pood]

@Brunswick1954 ,

You brought up Francis Collins. I think he said he began to believe in the Christian God because of how pretty a waterfall was, or something.

But you yourself brought up the problem of evil. Let’s talk about natural evils.

Yes, waterfalls can be very pretty. Lot of things in nature are, but that is hardly surprising, given that we are an evolved part of the natural world. We might find an alien world that is very different from our own and also inhabited, but it and its inhabitants might all see horrific to us. This was the theme of a Steven King short story, in which aliens found us repulsive.

But as pretty as nature can be, horrific things can happen. You can easily Google up videos of animals eating other animals. None of it is the least bit pretty.

One in particular sticks in my mind. A couple of lions had downed a wild hog or boar or something. And they were eating it. Alive.

And it most definitely was alive, and conscious, for as they chowed down on it, it kept trying to scrabble to its feet to get away, and the whole time, it was SCREAMING.

They tore off its back, tore out its innards, and the whole time, it was struggling and continuously SCREAMING.

This went on for some three minutes. When the video ended, the lions were still tearing it to pieces and it was still conscious and SCREAMING.

Sorry, that’s not compatible with all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful creator god. Unfortunately, life ain’t all waterfalls and birds chirping in gardens.

 

[pood]

I looked up the Collins waterfall story. It was weirder than I remembered. The waterfall, you see, somehow came in three parts — hence the triune god, hence Jesus!

 

[Elixir]

Maybe because he doesn’t exist, unlike oranges?

That.
It never furthers anything to mix apparitions and oranges.

 

[bilby]

Maybe because he doesn’t exist, unlike oranges?

That.
It never furthers anything to mix apparitions and oranges.

Nice.

I reactions that a lot.

 

[pood]

Francis Collins Saw a Triune Waterfall


Waterfalls are very pretty, they make me think of Jesus,
And birds chirping in gardens were surely made to please us.
And then there is the soaring, prismatic beauty of a rainbow,
But does Jesus know the bow is also a symbol of men who blow?

Let’s not forget lilies, Rimbaud’s enema bags of ecstasy,
Nor pink ribbons for a little girl, and for a boy a prancing pony.
Still, how can I forget the latest mass school shooting this morning,
And the gruesome death of my mother, which long left me in mourning?

Come to think of it, waterfalls have killed many people,
And birds eat living things after flying down from a steeple.
Cancer rots the brains of many little kiddies,
While tsunamis have leveled untold numbers of cities.

War, starvation, pestilence and death are all around,
Violence, chaos, rape and murder vastly abound.
The galaxies pinwheel across the ancient night sky,
Celestial shipwrecks, all destined to sputter and die.

Weinberg said the more the universe is comprehensible,
The more it also seems pointless. It seems reprehensible
That Jesus made something so shoddy and witless;
Maybe the Son of Man was incompetent and shiftless.

For all, a crucible of blood, toil, sweat and tears,
Eased now and then by suicide, or a few foamy beers.
Over all of us life casts a painful existential pall,
But cheer up — Francis Collins saw a triune waterfall!

 

[ideologyhunter]

Well, it's a more profound vision than shower mold Jesus, taco Jesus, grilled cheese Jesus, bird poop on windshield Jesus, wood grain Jesus, dog butt Jesus, oil tank Jesus (that was pretty close to my town), and all the other Gomer Pyle jaw droppers.
G-g-golllllllly!!!

 

[Elixir]

Well, it's a more profound vision than shower mold Jesus, taco Jesus, grilled cheese Jesus, bird poop on windshield Jesus, wood grain Jesus, dog butt Jesus, oil tank Jesus (that was pretty close to my town), and all the other Gomer Pyle jaw droppers.
G-g-golllllllly!!!

Agreed, but it’s morbidly unappreciative.

Over all of us life casts a painful existential pall

My existential pall is relatively painless. Probably because I am easily amused and easily distracted.
Life is a sensory experience, and entails pain. Like it or lump it, you are going to leave it. Knowing that is cause for neither action nor inaction. All of our universe, our reality, is transient. It’s cool. I take life as it comes, and hope to leave it as it goes!

 

[Brunswick1954]

 Asides

Anyway, what is the case for Christianity? Certainly nothing in the OP presented it.

This is why I see nothing of importance to respond to in the thread.
No connection whatsoever between "The Case for Christianity" and the opinions in the OP. I honestly agree with most of the OP, but it isn't relevant to any particular religion. Much less one as fundamentally irrational as Christianity.
Tom

Ummm. So far, I've based my arguments on the Bible, no?

My understanding, from the Bible, is that you don't have to believe in God in order to get into heaven. God exists, whether you believe it or not. And if you believe that our universe is governed by rules, and that we should live morally, you believe in God, whether you know it or not. And if you live that way, you will go to heaven, whether you want to or not.

I find your reasoning to be confusing, and more than that, out of step with 20 centuries of Christian orthodoxy.

Yes. It's a somewhat more radical view of Christianity than what you may be used to. I thought perhaps readers of this ChatGroup might both appreciate and enjoy it

Having said that, I'm not alone in my theological perspective. More and more Christian thinkers are taking this more inclusive view. For example:

The Church of England’s Response to Religious Pluralism - Anglicanism.org

Canon Dr. Anne Davison

anglicanism.org

Contradicting the church
I'm in good company here. Jesus broke many of the rules of Judaism during his time and his biggest quarrels were with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes and other religious leaders.

Self determination
Jesus taught by parables, many of which are meant to demonstrate the self-evident nature of right and wrong. Some, like the Prodigal Son and the The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, portrayed a different level of "morality" which goes against what we would normally expect.

It seems to me that Jesus challenges us to think for ourselves, and over time, Christianity has changed much to accommodate new discoveries and understanding.

I invite readers of this post to do the same. Read the Bible carefully and consider what is reasonable and worthy of a God that is above all gods. You may find, like I do, that the Bible may be far less narrow than is normally understood. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, I only ask that you read with an open mind.

 

[pood]

 Asides

Anyway, what is the case for Christianity? Certainly nothing in the OP presented it.

This is why I see nothing of importance to respond to in the thread.
No connection whatsoever between "The Case for Christianity" and the opinions in the OP. I honestly agree with most of the OP, but it isn't relevant to any particular religion. Much less one as fundamentally irrational as Christianity.
Tom

Ummm. So far, I've based my arguments on the Bible, no?

That’s the problem, though. You need independent lines of evidence. You don’t have any. There are not even any contemporaneous accounts of Jesus, which is quite surprising given that he allegedly performed miracles and rose from the dead.