Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Exchange with Daughter

jana wrote:
Good evening, Daddy!

I found the quote I'd been looking for (actually back a ways, but now I have the quote and the computer in proximity). This is the best description I've encountered on what "being a Christian" means.

>From Marcus Borg's "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time", pg 17:

"[T]he Christian life is about entering into a relationship with that to which the Christian tradition points, which may be spoken of as God, the risen living Christ, or the Spirit. And a Christian is one who lives out his or her relationship to God within the framework of the Christian tradition."

Another interesting quote is from Fr. David's Christmas Eve sermon:

"God is not Christian. Jesus was not Christian. We are Christian because we find light and hope in the Gospel and Epistles."

Neither of these makes much in the way of claims about reality or truth. They are both about frameworks within which we act out our lives.

At least that is my interpretation as a Christian insider. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts about what these two quotes imply.

Love you always!
jana


I responded:
"[T]he Christian life is about entering into a relationship with that to which the Christian tradition points, which may be spoken of as God, the risen living Christ, or the Spirit. And a Christian is one who lives out his or her relationship to God within the framework of the Christian tradition."
This first quote doesn't seem to say anything. There are over 30,000 incompatible Christian Denominations and 50,000 distinct religions (probably including the 30,000 Denominations I guess), so generalizing to something like that statement doesn't say anything. From a mathematical point of view, the phrase "that to which the Christian tradition points" may be anywhere from zero to 50,000, leaving it without a clear referent. One could try to claim that ethics, morality, and good clean living are only possible within a religious context, but that is demonstratively false. And vice versa, what is the origin of religion, how did it evolve, and why does religion generate so much evil? Lutherans voted for Hitler and the solution to the "Jewish Problem". You might want to look up Luther's anti-semitism and read about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Wikipedia has large interesting articles on "Religion", "Christianity", and the "List_of_Christian_denominations". I have a copy of the "The God Who Wasn't There" DVD.

"God is not Christian. Jesus was not Christian. We are Christian because we find light and hope in the Gospel and Epistles."
Jesus was Jewish. God is myth. Of course, nothing was Christian until the early church, mostly Paul, created it a couple of decades after the death of Jesus. It took a number of decades to sort out whether "Christianity" was "Jewish" or not and indeed that was the major point to Paul's writings. The Gospels and other writings came later. They are a mash up of material with differing agendas. There were numerous other major theologies claiming to be Christian too, but Paul's group won out and the other groups were relegated to obscurity. The final established dogma was arrived at in the fourth century. It was re-haggled out during the Reformation. The history is kind of interesting, because it explains a lot. Most discussion of that history is so romanticized that it is next to meaningless. It says more about the "historian" than the history. Most people of religion don't even consider history relevant and defend remaining ignorant. Modern historical methods have been used by Christian scholars from within, but their findings are completely denied and ignored by Christians as a whole. Just mention Bishop Spong at church. Lessons, sermons, services, study groups, and every thing else still carry on as if they were medieval. I was thinking about historical methods during the sermon on 4th Advent at St. Paul's Bellingham on Mary Visits Elizabeth, Luke 1:39-45. The deacon didn't mention anything historical in the sermon. The passage is hogwash from a historical point of view. It obviously is literature and only has meaning in the context of the author's story and agenda.

With chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, the irrationality of people of religion with the threat of modern religious wars is frightening. I've read that estimates are that there is at most a 50% chance that the human species will survive this century. Rational people can no longer stand aside and let people of religion do whatever they want. We can't just hope that things will turn out.

I'm not sure that you really want to carry on this discussion. I'm like the small child in "The Emperor's New Clothes", "but there is no supernatural". I've come to the conclusion that all religion is not just delusion, but fraud. I'm currently reading Daniel Dennett, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins.

Gary

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