Christianity in a nutshell

[RichardParticipant]

Dan Barker is one of the leaders of the Freedom from Religion organization.  He is a former pastor turned non-theist.  He has had quite a journey and you can find a link to his longer talk if you would like to hear how he made his way through many of the issues discussed within this forum.  His parable presented in this short YouTube video presents a rather revealing view of what is often called good news.  I was taught to try and be like god as the model of goodness.  And yet when you place god’s actions within realistic context god comes out a little creepy.  Click on the link and watch the video and say what you think about it.

Christianity in a nutshell

• This topic was modified 2 years ago by  David Hayward.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Hayward.

[servantgirlParticipant]

Thanks for posting this Richard, I had not seen this video yet.  FFRF is one of the rational secular hubs I gravitated too as an early non-believer, and what Dan Barker had to say is one of the reasons I still support them.

[David HaywardKeymaster]

I’m certainly going to check it out. Tomorrow. To bed now

[moxierocksParticipant]

It’s SO TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[David HaywardKeymaster]

Well that was entertaining. It wouldn’t represent all christians’ thoughts, but many. Not all believe in substitutionary atonement or in the appeasement of God’s wrath. but it does highlight the questionability of some christian mythology.

[RichardParticipant]

I think when a Christian holds the bible as an authority on the will of god it is very difficult to get past the substitutionary atonement.  I have always found it very difficult to derive a Christian philosophy without running head on into substitutionary atonement.  Even C.S. Lewis couldn’t get past that one.  Simply read his Chronicles of Narnia.  And even though it is not an angry god that is being pleased, the whole need to follow these arbitrary rules of evil’s ownership of humanity seems rather contrived.

If Christianity is the golden rule, freedom of thought, and accepting everyone with love, the bible tends to run counter to that idea.  And there are some very complicated apologetics engaged to try and make the bible relevant to that idea.

What I have seen lately is a tendency to define oneself as  Jesus follower.  I’m not sure exactly what that means other than following a popular iconic modern Jesus that has become the focal point of a reinterpreted more new age Jesus that endorses a certain western “churchianity.”

I think we are seeing a syncretic evolution of Christianity in modern times, which is really what Christianity has been all along.

[AngParticipant]

I missed this earlier and just wanted to thank you for sharing the video’s. The short version is great and I am going to share it and some of my wonderful Christian friends and see what happens.  Check on me in a few days to make sure I’m still alive.  smile…

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

Thanks Richard for sharing this…. it cracked me up… I’m listening to the long version now.

[katiepearlParticipant]

Yes, penal substitutionary atonement is horrible, and the emphasis on it at the expense of other models is unfortunate.

I remember a Sunday School teacher telling the story of a boy in school who was in trouble, and about to get a beating.  So an older boy stepped up and offered to take the beating for him, and the teacher agreed.  That was supposed to be what Jesus was about.

I had huge difficulty with it; the boy representing Jesus was of course noble and kind; but the teacher representing God is cruel and unjust.

Yet some people have trouble understanding the idea that interpretation of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice comes from its first century context and we need to find interpretations that make sense to us now.

[RichardParticipant]

Katiepearl,

I’ve looked at a lot of models for interpreting the death of Jesus and I’ve yet to find one that makes sense within the context of an omnipotent god.

I was wondering why would we need to find a different interpretation when, at least within my study, the divinity of Jesus is something that was made up.  If Jesus existed it is far more likely that he was simply a Rabbi or teacher.  My guess is that to sustain a belief in Jesus there was a need to expand the mythology around him to make it palatable to a 2nd century Greek and Roman audience.

[Anonymous]

Richard. Really loved the video. Please expand on syncretic evolution. Not sure what that means. I’m also very interested on the assembly of the bible as it pertains to the creation of the Roman Empire and how it has carried such flavor and justification to the skewed form of Christianity we have today. Any thoughts?

[katiepearlParticipant]

Richard; Jesus’ death was unjust, brought about by ‘the sin of the world’ – the unjust systems that crucify those that try to do good.  As such he becomes a symbol of solidarity with oppressed people and a challenge to the unjust systems of the world – a martyr, if you like, who continues to inspire.

Liberation Theology has an interesting take on it; the scandal of the cross is that it still happens – the innocent are still persecuted and murdered.  The poor suffer so that the rest of us can live nice comfortable lives; the scandal being that we accept it and ignore the suffering.

I’m still a Christian; I believe that God* was in Jesus**, affirming God’s commitment to this world, taking responsibility for all the shittiness in it (in living life to its conclusion), acting in solidarity with those who suffer; thus inspiring hope and action in the present***.

*still thinking about a term to use instead; not an invisible superhuman, but the guiding principle of the universe.

**incarnation, of which stories of a virgin conception are a symbol.

***in a positive way, not a passive, masochistic acceptance of suffering.  So I’m with Peter Abelard rather than Anselm.

 

[RichardParticipant]

kmillard,

Syncretism is the melding of various mythologies or theologies into a compromised view.  This allows even contradicting ideas to be merged.  Often one will be treated as an allegory and the other as literal.  You will find this extensively, even in Christianity today, as various denominations will claim parts of the Bible are literal and others allegorical.

It is becoming quite obvious that there was never a “pure” period for Christianity.  What is interesting is that the first scriptures aside from the Old Testament were actually Gnostic mystical writings.  In these Jesus was not a real person but representative of an inner being who brought gnosis or awareness.  And they viewed the Old Testament god as an evil god who is the accidental by-product of Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, when she leaves the oneness of god.  This evil OT god commits sin by bringing the material world into existence.  Sophia tries to patch this up by putting her spirit into creation.  Jesus is sent to repair the breach between the creatures who are sustained by the spirit of Sophia and the one god.  This is the origin of the idea of calling Jesus the word or logos.  He brings to man the knowledge or gnosis of the one god.  The gospels were seen as allegorical or the outer wisdom and Jesus provided the inner wisdom or awakening  This was really the first Christians.  The orthodox writings were written in response and later established through the power of the Roman Empire trying to unify all the various Christian and Jewish sects into one Holy Roman Catholic Church.  This was because Plato and his materialistic philosophy was the primary thought mode of the Roman world.  We generally don’t know of this because there was a systematic destruction of all writings counter to the orthodox understanding.  You have the use of violence occurring very early in the Christian narrative.

What we do understand of the early gnostic beliefs is from apologetics written by orthodox writers.  These are distorted views because they are presented in their worst light.  We have also unearthed a number of gnostic gospels and have begun to piece the puzzle of their complex belief systems together.  You can see the gnostic remnants even in the gospels once you understand the gnostic belief system.

D.M. Murdock, Elaine Pagels, Joseph Campbell, and Bart Ehrman are all good places to start.  You won’t find a consensus with everyone on any of these, but you can see that Christianity is a far less established set of ideas than we have been led to believe.  And its roots are far less divine than we have been led to believe.

[RichardParticipant]

katiepearl,

Ok,

I view the world in much the same way, except I come to it from a humanistic perspective.  In my world view there is a rational approach to the problem of human suffering.  You use the term guiding principle of the universe as “god.”  I think what you have described is a perfect example of syncretic evolution.  I’m not saying that as a derogatory point, but simply as an example how we humans evolve.

There are a number of theories that demonstrate that the quality of life for all is vastly superior in a world where compassion and co-operation is practiced.  Hence, evidence of a “guiding principle.”  I happen to think it is a principle with no active guiding involved.  Selfishness will work in a small group for an individual, but at the national level selfishness will place that nation at a disadvantage to other nations who practice compassion and co-operation.  These play out within large amounts of time and short term analysis doesn’t reveal the advantages of ethical interaction.

I think at an intuitional level most people know this.  The real art of compassion is understood by doing it skillfully because the problem of poverty and suffering are very complex.  And when we bring both reason and empathy together I believe we have a stronger, more effective practice of compassion.

 

[katiepearlParticipant]

Richard; sorry, missed the line “within the context of an omnipotent God.”

There is the claim that a strong theology of incarnation redeems the penal substitutionary model; it was God on the cross, in solidarity with human suffering and taking the penalty of human sin, rather than the petulant despot hurling punishment at the nearest convenient victim.  I’m not quite convinced.

My own view is that there is a bigger picture going on than we can understand, and that God has given, over and over again, examples of the best that human beings can do and be.  Society at large tends not to appreciate the gift, and treats them in fairly shitty manner.  However, because these people are the best that human beings can be, they rise to it with dignity and courage, and give an example that others may aspire to.  In this way the human race is inspired to improve itself, in fits and starts.

I think there’s an overall plan in it somewhere, but we can know very little of it; the mistake of some sections of Christianity is to treat the Bible like a code to be cracked and analysed rather than stories to inspire living.

 

 

 

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