The Case for Christianity

[Michael S. Pearl]

4. ... God, through Jesus, has forgiven our sins and love us, and will continue to do so.

One of the most underappreciated qualities of the Bible as well as other scriptures is that they manage to provide insights and stimulate the thoughts of people at different stages of intellectual, ethical, spiritual, etc., development and awareness. People develop at different rates and in differing ways, and their beliefs are often most important for providing an orientation, even the comfort of a sense of security, but for there to be development, for there to be advancement, security must be set aside, put at risk.

When security is not risked for the sake of development of one's own person, idolatry is the result.

If some people are such that they can only think of forgiveness as having come "through Jesus", that is fine if and only if that way of thinking in no way impoverishes (development of) the ability to respond to each encountered other for the sake of the other. The fact of the matter is that forgiveness was taught - and was clearly available - prior to Jesus. Leviticus 19:18 instructs against seeking revenge and holding grudges. That instruction can only be followed by forgiving despite the fact that the instruction does not explicitly insist that one is to forgive.

 

[Swammerdami]

It would be refreshing to hear a Christian say I understand it is not pro0able but I believe in god, Jesus, and the bible...I have faith.

I maintained that position for a while.

Less than a year later, I came out as an atheist.

Some people are uninterested in any intellectual debate about the plausibility of any God, but enjoy and benefit from admiring a spiritual figure who can inspire. Jesus Christ can serve that role.

Many people enjoy and benefit from the eloquent prescription ...

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

... without minding that the sentence starts with a (non-existent) "God." That noun can be treated as Nature or one's own will-power or just as an arbitrary place-holder like the "It" in "It is raining."

 

[bilby]

This is a manipulative trap. Atheists must be atheists because they had a bad brush with Christianity and it is emotional to them. Atheists don't just not believe in Yahweh, but in all the gods.

Indeed. I don't believe in Nanahuatzin, though I have never had any bad experiences from His temple or priests.







Well, except that time when they refused to pluck the still beating heart from my sister, who was being very mean to me. It's not like it was my fault that she wasn't a virgin. Stupid Nanahuatzin.

 

[steve_bank]

When I was growing up the first book I remember reading was Tom Swift And His Rocket Ship. And as I got older Asimov, Clark, Heinlein and others. Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki was certainly a stimulation as I expect it was for many in the day. Shirtless suntanned guys braving the ocean on a raft. High adventure for a kid.

To Kill A Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn, and Diary Of Anne Frank were common reading. These books were probably not appreciated by many Christians. Christians in the day censored libraries and schools of that which they did not like. The battle continues today.

Plus other literature. I went to a Cathleen high school but the summer reading lists were diverse.

In the 60s 70s Hindu scripture, Zen, and Buddhism became popular alternatives to Christianity.

When I read Buddhism especially Tibetan in the 70s I came to see it as a practical psychology framed in older cultural terms. A lot of it maps to modern psychology. I rember there being a book on it.

From some of the better shows on religion there can be a psychology pulled o0ut of the OT.

Inspiration for me came form many sources, I grew up reading and as a kid I frequented the library. Ass an adult I read everything. Gone today before the Internet homes had encyclopedias.

To me Christian scripture and the 2000 years of interpretation are utterly useless.
In the 60s the space program influenced kids like me to go engineering and science. Believe it or not 60s Star Trek was influential on young kids. James Doohan who played Scott said he got letters from college students saying his character inspired them.

I got nothing from religion, certainly not the jumbled incoherent bible. I got more human insight out of Shakespeare and Don Quixote than the bible old or new testament. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes for that matter. Reading Poe as a kid.

In the context of a wider historical scope there was not really anything unique about ancient Jews. They borrowed a lot from other cultures.

A trip down memory lane.

What is striking about Christianity is given the staggering wealth of human writings to date that are now available in cheap paperback or online they remain narrow minded wearing bleeders about anything outside of Christianity.

Christian sculpture does motivate some. I read Mother Teresa’s book, an interesting person. She is walking down a street in India and passes by a stinking emaciated man on the street. She passe by, then goes back picking him up and carrying him to her clinic. On the other hand interpretation of scripture in America led to kidnapping Native American kids and raising them in Christian schools. Justify slavery. Religious inspiration depends on the individual.

If anything the acts of Christians based on the bible should stimulate thought as to the validity of sculpture as any kind of guide for living.

So eds my weekly mental stimulation. As Hecule Poirot would say, exercising the little grey cells.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

This is a manipulative trap. Atheists must be atheists because they had a bad brush with Christianity and it is emotional to them. Atheists don't just not believe in Yahweh, but in all the gods.

Indeed. I don't believe in Nanahuatzin, though I have never had any bad experiences from His temple or priests.







Well, except that time when they refused to pluck the still beating heart from my sister, who was being very mean to me. It's not like it was my fault that she wasn't a virgin. Stupid Nanahuatzin.

When I was a church going teenager I was a member of a church youth group called the PFA (Presbyterian Fellowship of Australia), and it was fun, doing things like going on weekend camping trips, so definitely no bad experiences, quite the opposite. Yet I dropped out of going to church at this time as I was basically always an atheist.

 

[lostone]

This is a manipulative trap. Atheists must be atheists because they had a bad brush with Christianity and it is emotional to them. Atheists don't just not believe in Yahweh, but in all the gods.

Indeed. I don't believe in Nanahuatzin, though I have never had any bad experiences from His temple or priests.







Well, except that time when they refused to pluck the still beating heart from my sister, who was being very mean to me. It's not like it was my fault that she wasn't a virgin. Stupid Nanahuatzin.

When I was a church going teenager I was a member of a church youth group called the PFA (Presbyterian Fellowship of Australia), and it was fun, doing things like going on weekend camping trips, so definitely no bad experiences, quite the opposite. Yet I dropped out of going to church at this time as I was basically always an atheist.

I was raised as a Presbyterian myself. I even wanted to believe, and tried very hard to do so, but, the whole story line presented by Christianity just didn't make any sense to me.

 

[DBT]

I set about reading the bible in my early twenties, under the impression that it was a holy book, people believed in it, sacred and full of wisdom, yet it read like a B grade horror movie, betrayal and retribution, revolt in heaven, demons, an apparently intolerant god demanding worship, conditional salvation where one can never be certain that the criteria has been met.

 

[bilby]

This is a manipulative trap. Atheists must be atheists because they had a bad brush with Christianity and it is emotional to them. Atheists don't just not believe in Yahweh, but in all the gods.

Indeed. I don't believe in Nanahuatzin, though I have never had any bad experiences from His temple or priests.







Well, except that time when they refused to pluck the still beating heart from my sister, who was being very mean to me. It's not like it was my fault that she wasn't a virgin. Stupid Nanahuatzin.

When I was a church going teenager I was a member of a church youth group called the PFA (Presbyterian Fellowship of Australia), and it was fun, doing things like going on weekend camping trips, so definitely no bad experiences, quite the opposite. Yet I dropped out of going to church at this time as I was basically always an atheist.

I bet you would have kept on going if they had done less camping, and more plucking the still beating heart from a virgin's chest.

But that's the problem with modern religion; It's too politically correct and wishy-washy. Time to get back to basics.

We all have to learn to make sacrifices.

 

[lostone]

As a teenager, I was fond of the old Babylonian tradition of temple prostitutes, now possibly debunked

Sacred prostitution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bilby]

As a teenager, I was fond of the old Babylonian tradition of temple prostitutes

Sacred prostitution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Wow, how old are you??

 

[southernhybrid]

I use a Bible verse to explain my atheism.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a WOman, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

I also frequently say that the truth has set me free. By that I mean, the truth set me free from the cognitive dissonance I experienced as a child being indoctrinated into believing the Bible was true.

Whatever floats your boat, as long as you don't try to drag others into the boat with you.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

4. ... God, through Jesus, has forgiven our sins and love us, and will continue to do so.

One of the most underappreciated qualities of the Bible as well as other scriptures is that they manage to provide insights and stimulate the thoughts of people at different stages of intellectual, ethical, spiritual, etc., development and awareness.

Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions does too. Are we going to start worshiping him?

If some people are such that they can only think of forgiveness as having come "through Jesus", that is fine if and only if that way of thinking in no way impoverishes (development of) the ability to respond to each encountered other for the sake of the other. The fact of the matter is that forgiveness was taught - and was clearly available - prior to Jesus. Leviticus 19:18 instructs against seeking revenge and holding grudges. That instruction can only be followed by forgiving despite the fact that the instruction does not explicitly insist that one is to forgive.

If there is one thing Yahweh is bad at in the Tanakh... it is offering forgiveness. The mercy always comes after the ass whooping.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Ah yes, I don't believe in Zeus purely for emotional reasons. Uh huh.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions does too. Are we going to start worshiping him?

Anyone so inclined could consider the possibility that the Bible is most rightly to be regarded predominantly as revealing an assortment of human perspectives on the notion of God as well as the aspects of experience which are beyond the limits of language. With regards to worshiping, taking account of the Bible in terms of human perspectives would entail considering worship as a response to fear and/or uncertainty; worship could also be recognized as a joyful response to experience had of awareness beyond knowledge and language; worship/ritual would also be seen as an aspect of culture and nation formation providing for shared expression and orientation. Ultimately, there is the realization that God is not concerned with being worshiped or blood sacrifices but, with regards to humans, is instead concerned with the manner of human being particularly as revealed, for example, in the commentaries on the aleph which teach that God is to be seen in the face of the other.

If there is one thing Yahweh is bad at in the Tanakh... it is offering forgiveness. The mercy always comes after the ass whooping.

Well, not always. After all, there is the day of atonement. And then there are passages such as Numbers 14: 20-25 in which God purportedly forgives, and, yet, there are nonetheless consequences. This just highlights the difficulties associated with fully characterizing forgiveness. Forgiveness provides for a fresh opportunity, but then there is the matter of the response to such an opportunity along with the response of others to that response to the opportunity.

Love, forgiveness - such matters are not determinate; there is no set or singular way in which they are to be made manifest. This is the case whether God is or whether God is not. Such permanently indeterminate matters - matters of arguably the greatest importance - are ultimately to be effected, to be made manifest by human individuals, and this making manifest is a never ending undertaking.

This undertaking is the actual topic in the verses which immediately follow the most well known part of the shema: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." The you ... shall talk of the love when you awaken, when you lie down, when you sit in your house, and when you walk establish this matter of manifesting love - rather than worship - as the central, core aspect for human being.

At least that is the case for anyone so inclined.

 

[Learner]

If there is one thing Yahweh is bad at in the Tanakh... it is offering forgiveness. The mercy always comes after the ass whooping.

Said in a likewise manner...

..."the whooping" always comes after the warning. This covenant, which warns of the consequences of judgement/justice (which still stands) was way back.. long before even the Ten Commandments!


Genesis 9:5-6
5..And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

6Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

 

[ideologyhunter]

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded." Deut 20:16-7

"God, do I really have to kill this child...and this baby??"
"Didn't you read your scriptures, asshole?"

 

[pood]

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded." Deut 20:16-7

These people, of course, were all talking to themselves, worshiping themselves. But that also goes for the love narratives. The whole human drama is in the bible in symbolic form, which makes it great literature.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If there is one thing Yahweh is bad at in the Tanakh... it is offering forgiveness. The mercy always comes after the ass whooping.

Said in a likewise manner...

..."the whooping" always comes after the warning.

So what. The critical aspect was Yahweh's forgiveness. Saying that he warned prior to whooping the ass isn't forgiveness. We call that abuse!

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded." Deut 20:16-7

In line with pood's remark about talking to themselves, worshiping themselves, it could be argued that the cited passage is a case of taking God's name in vain. After all, there is this from Leviticus 19: 33-34: "When a stranger [or foreigner] dwells among you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger [or foreigner] who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

Again, depending on one's inclination.

 

[ideologyhunter]

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded." Deut 20:16-7

In line with pood's remark about talking to themselves, worshiping themselves, it could be argued that the cited passage is a case of taking God's name in vain. After all, there is this from Leviticus 19: 33-34: "When a stranger [or foreigner] dwells among you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger [or foreigner] who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

Again, depending on one's inclination.

Except that I had a choice of many, many, many orders from God to exterminate all the people and livestock of various cities (kill 'em, unless you fancy their nubile young women.) Plus God doing the slaughtering himself (again, a choice of many episodes.) BTW, how many verses would a believer trim away from the Bible, as being contrary to love and mercy, before the book as a whole is plainly seen as unsuitable for modern minds?