Posted on 07/10/2008 4:42:12 AM PDT by Apollo 13
Hi folks -
I myself often battled innerly with how I stand in things religious. I studied the Bible in its entirety very carefully, and did a lot of other reading (e.g. about the ancient Greek and Roman view on religion). I do have respect for people who take the agnostic stance - if you don't have gone through religious experiences, and your conscience tells you so, then it is absolutely respectable to say: 'I don't know' (the great philosopher Imanuel Kant, himself a devout religious man, wrote this almost literally). My own view on this topic: I have great personal trouble with what's written in the Old Testament, although I have a lot of admiration for the amendments made by Jesus in the New Testament. It's not so much the miracles that are described in there, it's more that Jesus expresses doubt, self-doubt, and makes people aware that they should, before judging others or even punishing them, perform an act of introspection and look at the state of their own moral conscience. Brilliant stuff. I myself have a rather humble, meagre take on it all. I am convinced that the Universe has a moral structure. Without that, everything would be meaningless and without value for me. You're free to call this conviction 'God', if you will. It's just that I have trouble with sections in the Bible (and I won't even mention the Koran, awful). And for me, in matters like these, the written word does not count anyway - it's about actions. It may be a trivial example, but yesterday I watched an episode of the beautiful British detective series 'Inspector Frost', and it's telling that the most emotional, gripping, human section of it, lasting perhaps 5 to 10 minutes, was entirely without words. (It was so moving that you lost track of time altogether, in fact). Crime (murder, theft, rape, and so on) for me constitute a severe disruption of this moral Universe that I believe in. And therefore punishment is in order to restore that moral structure. Dostojevski had one of his protagonists (in 'The Brothers Karamazov') saying: 'If there is no God, then everything is allowed'; and as simple as this remark is, it represents an eternal truth. Lastly, atheism. Here I can be short: this is the most stupid attitude (it does not even deserve the term: 'conviction'). See: there exists a world. There exists human love. There is so much that we learn every day, and with proper application of science, we can make the world even a better place. And yes, there also is evil, and we should judiciously fight it. Yet our current Dutch minister for Education, a biochemist, stated five or so years ago: 'When I was eight years old, I discovered that there is no God'. Immediately I found the man repulsive. This remark is idiotic on so many levels that I wonder how he even got through secondary school, let alone get a Ph. D. eventually. How on earth can you 'discover', or 'prove', that there is no God? The man suffers from delusions of grandeur, of self-aggrandizement in the worst sense, I feel. Please feel free to comment, criticize, amend, supplement, and so on, at your convenience. This topic means very much to me.
Hi Apollo13...nice piece.
And remember...paragraphs are yer buddy. Good Luck and I hope you get some good responses!
I don’t think Jesus so much as amended the old testament as placed it in proper context with the times. There is certainly some brutality in those texts, but how much is a result of human imperfection, and not God’s wishes? Much more than the aethists would read into it, I’m sure. It would be wrong, however, to make God himself beholden to our imperfect understanding of what is moral and right, or to think that life was given to us without conditions. I don’t see any contradictions between the old and new testaments myself, but I’m not looking for them; it may seem narrow-minded but I prefer to accept what is written there open-heartedly rather than with skepticism.
Thank you for a thoughtful reply. It’s not so much skepticism that makes me apprehensive of written texts. I am often wondering what is missing: the Hebrews might have slewn another tribe for good reasons (on the command of Yahweh) but we don’t, and won’t ever, know what was it that made God irate about the Ammonites, Amalekites, Edomites, and others.
It is true that I have it in my genes to read analytically, and I can’t help it. I was born that way and can’t change it. But for me it really suffices to consider the Universe as being moral in structure (or building, or make-up, or appearance to humans - words are not that important here). And hey - basically it leads me to a view on life and society that is not very different from the New Testament.
I'm sure you didn't try to be complete in your summary, but each topic you discuss has many, many branches.
For instance, you too quickly throw out the Old Testament based upon a couple of points. But the OT and the NT are two parts of the same book. You can view the OT as The Law and the NT as Forgiveness. Or you can view the OT as Justice and the NT as Mercy. Or you can view the OT as Prophecy and the NT as Fulfillment. There are many ways to look at both of these very powerful and life-changing books, but to throw it out summarily does the OT and its followers and students a grave injustice.
Likewise, your admiration of the NT is a bit one-sided as well. To say that you like the NT because it teaches us self-doubt and therefore non-judgementalism is part of what has led us to Moral Relativism. Do you appreciate Singer fro Princeton University saying that a woman has a right to abort her child up to 3 weeks after birth? He makes that statement based upon Moral Relativism, that if it's ok to abort the child three weeks before birth, what's the difference? Who is to say it is wrong for a mother to choose the next generation?
Left-leaning Christians like to take snippets of the Bible and hold them up for their personal and collective political agendas. They use the Bible warnings against greed and the love of money and the teachings to help the poor to promote socialism. While Jesus taught us not to judge, his teachings pivoted around not judging the forgiveness or condemnation of another's soul based upon their worldly actions, that such a judgment is for G** alone. But Jesus plainly told us that the laws of the OT are to be followed. The Bible certainly does teach us to condemn actions and behavior. Yes, it teaches us to be forgiving, but Jesus did tell the woman at the well, “sin no more.”
I agree with your assessment regarding atheism. Not only is it as absolutist as certain fundamental faiths, but it falls apart logically the more atheists argue. They are pushing against a force that is trying to open their door, a force they claim does not exist. The more they discuss the nonexistence of something, the more they are defining it in concrete terms.
Which leads me to your view on agnosticism. People can be agnostic because they are intellectually still ‘searching’ or they can be so because they are arrogant and trying to rise above both believers and non-believers. Remember what Jesus said, he'd rather people be hot or cold rather than lukewarm, which He will spit out like tepid water. My point is that it all comes down to the individual. To make a blanket statement that agnostics are more appealing than atheists is a form of judgementalism because you are assuming what is in the hearts of their adherents.
I hope this doesn't sound harsh. All I'm trying to do is illustrate how very complex a subject this can be. And I'm also trying to make the point that a lot of it is fairly irrelevant. Religion is a tool that closes the gap between G** and Man. But before someone can use that tool, he has already accepted that there is a G**. Most cross that divide of whether there is or is not. Once they cross, I agree with you that it requires a serious analysis and decision. I wouldn't get to caught up in all the varieties of religious and anti-religious experience. That can be as fruitless as either agnosticism or atheism. I've had pastors that were very intellectual but who did not convey to me any true faith when they sermonized.
I will say that your approach to the NT is sound. Some of the best advice I've heard was not to read the NT as a biblical text or for theological sounding, but simply to read it to get to know Jesus. If someone does so with an open heart and mind, I believe this is the best way that someone can correctly align themselves vertically in the G**-to-man relationship (that is, setting yourself up as a creation of G**’s, under Him, submitted to Him, not as ‘an equal to’), which is where true religion must begin. Once you have your vertical alignment correct, all other horizontal relationships (to people and ideas) have a much better chance of aligning correctly and proportionately.
Here are a few books you may be interested in, if you haven't already read them:
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man (read that one last as it is very dense)
GK Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, Heresy and Orthodoxy
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
If you could only read one, I'd read Mere Christianity. Lewis gave a series of radio addresses during WWII that addressed the issues you raised. His is the simplest yet most coherent and logical analysis of these issues I've read.
Good luck. G** bless.
Thank you so much for a most brilliant reply (and I mean it!) I am still struggling how to phrase all of it better and indeed see my own inconsistencies. And be assured: if criticism is as good as yours, then I want truckloads of it).
Also: I will follow your hints/leads concerning deeper literature and such.
May God bless you likewise.
“If I knew God I’d be Him.”
Do it again with paragraphs and I’ll read it.
That seems to make the existence of an atheist government official something of an oxymoron.
I didn’t mean to imply that skepticism was a bad thing; it’s a very useful and admirable thing in fact, especially in the field of science. God did give us a brain you know, and not just a bible in our hands at birth. But, just as God is beyond the realm of science, skepticism also has a fundamental limit. In order to advance a theory, rather than disprove it, the assumption has to be made that it’s true, at least for a while. That, I suppose, is how I can justify postponing my skepticism of the old testament.
Good points, though I have often felt that the truth lies in the development of mankind under God's tutelage. Man was born in Eden; from there, God guided the Hebrew people through stages analogous to childhood, using various tools to discipline and guide His spiritual child. Did God hate the Amalekites and so forth? Not in any true sense of the word, but like a parent will strive to keep his or her child out of the clutches of bad influences, God had to use harsh measures to keep His "child" on track, until they reached the point where mankind achieved "adulthood" with the death of Jesus.
Thank you for an unexpected but no less wonderful comment for that. I would add that we do have proof of atheist governments past and present that indeed thought that everything was allowed.
I already wrote about this, but it’s fitting to reiterate it:
Pol Pot handed out Kalashnikovs and AK-47s to young kiddie ‘soldiers’ to kill their next of kin.
You only need to read Solszhenitzyn to realize what the atheist Sovjet regime thought was in the interest of the country.
And Chairman Mao-Tse-Tung, after having ordered the execution of thousands on a daily basis, then took a bath, and then had five underage virgins delivered to him to have a good sex romp - every day.
The paradox is that the first thing an atheist government does is disallow saying there is a God.
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