Comments on: Why Atheism, Jesus’ Love, and Secular Humanism

By: jennifer

jennifer — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:30:14 +0000

True, one of my good friends is a Methodist minister and she is one of the first Christians I’ve known to be open to questioning and reason. Great discussion.

By: CelticBear

CelticBear — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:07:09 +0000

I grew up in a liberal Methodist church. Fortunately, Methodism has historically been encouraging of intellect and questioning. All the Methodist ministers I’ve known have been smart, thoughtful, and in a couple cases, almost heretical. (The minister that married my wife and I was willing to entertain the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdeline may have been married.)

But in that environment, I and most people I knew, tried to reconcile science with religion. For example, I accepted evolution as fact, and so Genesis must have been allegory. But, that’s as far as I’d take it, and most people I knew. The Bible was truth… except where it conflicted with known facts like evolution, in which the Bible must be allegory or metaphor. Symbolic. But for fear of the walls of faith crumbling down, I didn’t take it any further. “If Genesis is allegory… what else could be allegory? Bits here and there? All of it?”

Once I found out that there are COUNTLESS instances of ancient Asia Minor deities and heroes being virgin born, implore followers to eat his body (figurative or literal,) half god/half man, sacrificed for humanity, etc etc etc ad nauseum…. it just all came together. The Bible is no more or less “truth” than the Iliad.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:02:23 +0000

Your point is well taken about Jesus not writing anything himself, and the fact that we have no proof he said anything he supposedly said. I was speaking strictly to the passages cited. I totally agree with your assessment of the gospel writers, btw. Luke is based on the teaching of Paul, who got it all wrong, imo. And yea, *nobody* gets John, lol!

If the entire Bible was read cover-to-cover by all Christians, I think what youâ€™d have would be a hardcore group of fundamental literalists who could truly be called Christian (and would likely be dangerous,) and a lot of â€œformer Christians.â€

This is the way I was raised. My entire family and everyone I came into contact with during my formative years. We read the Bible through cover to cover once a year and could quote whole chapters by the time we entered school. Every word is steadfastly believed in its most literal sense, and you donâ€™t dare change even a single comma for fear of Hell. Thatâ€™s why I have a hard time swallowing the idea of so-called Christians who donâ€™t know what their own religion teaches. I take your word for it, of course, itâ€™s just a foreign concept to me personally.

By: CelticBear

CelticBear — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:22:51 +0000

I think, to get back to the point, the point is that most Christians don’t really know their religion. They have some stories they got in Sunday School, they have the imagery they glean of Jesus during Christmas and Easter, and have never read the book their religion is based on. They’re Christian by default of the time and place they were born and raised.
If people actually read the book that reveals their religion, they would find not only a Jesus that was not a modernly liberal Caucasian hippie, but also a petty and schizophrenic deity who exhibits evidence of paranoia. A religion that advocates atrocities that requires the most gymnastic of rationalizations and disingenuousness and cognitive dissonance to explain away or dismiss.
Thing is, most so-called Christians are basically making up their own religion based on a little bit of this and a little bit of that. If the entire Bible was read cover-to-cover by all Christians, I think what you’d have would be a hardcore group of fundamental literalists who could truly be called Christian (and would likely be dangerous,) and a lot of “former Christians.” Most people simply have no idea of what 99% of the Bible is all about.
Like Penn Jillette says, the best way to deconvert someone is to have the read the entire Bible, beginning to end.

By: CelticBear

CelticBear — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:55:54 +0000

You’re absolutely right.
But let’s take it one step further… ALL of the passages in the Bible claiming Jesus’ words are someone else’s words. We have no writings from Jesus himself. Everything from the gospels (both canonized and apocryphal) were written by people who didn’t actually witness the events.
We can see differences in what Jesus said between gospels (for example, one had Jesus saying nothing to Pilate, another he goes off on tirades in front of Pilate, one he tells a young rich man no one is ‘good’ but God and in another he tells the youth something different,) so we have to question if anything Jesus supposedly said was actually said at all.
Strictly from a literary sense, not even from any kind of critical or debunking sense, it makes sense to examine the text as historical documents or literature and glean some intent and purpose of agenda from them.
We can see in Mark’s gospel that he seems to be writing a fictional story that does not focus on trying to make Jesus out to be a fulfillment of prophesy. He has a desire to teach people, from a newly developed Christian perspective, certain lessons that come from a theme of “first shall be last, and last shall be first.” That theme is all through his writing, a writing that is filled with a very literary style and not that of a historical record.
Then there’s Matthew as you mention, who takes what “Mark” wrote and added elements of Jesus’ divinity and Isaiaic prophesy. Mark is trying to teach and educate and entertain, Matthew is trying to solidify a growing religion’s pedigree within a Jewish community. Luke has a different agenda and appears to try to create a more historic version. But he’s working off pre-existing writings as Luke was written late enough that the author may not have even been alive when Jesus supposedly was. So even though Luke’s gospel has more hallmarks of trying to be a historical telling, it’s still at best 2nd-hand.
John’s is just weird.
Basically, we simply can’t know who Jesus actually was, what he was like. All we have is the writings of people who never met him, and each one trying to accomplish different goals with how they portray this character.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:42:06 +0000

I just want to comment on the part about the loving, benevolent Jesus: Only the first two passages cited in the post are actually quoting Jesus. The other two are from other writers, one of which never even met him. Both Jesus quotes are from Matthew, who painted Jesus in a much stronger light than the other gospel writers. Matthew wrote specifically to the Jews, the leaders of whom Jesus is addressing in the passages, lambasting them for their self-righteous spirituality and political/social oppression. Frankly, they were asking for it. Much the way we lambast our political leaders today for their self-righteousness, hypocritical stances, and personal greed. By doing so, Jesus was showing love to the poor and marginalized of our society, and *that* is the example I strive to follow.