When I say it, I get a rush of protest proclaiming that not all Christians are like that. I know they aren’t, but we ignore the theocratic Right at our peril.
Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars have identified as predictors of the apocalypse—among them a war in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the rise of terrorism. [Phillips] convincingly demonstrates that the Bush administration has calculatedly reached out to such believers and encouraged them to see the president’s policies as a response to premillennialist thought. He also suggests that the president and other members of his administration may actually believe these things themselves, that religious belief is the basis of policy, not just a tactic for selling it to the public.
I’m afraid the kooks and RaptureReady folks and Left Behind fans and Christian Reconstructionists and Dispensationalists and Bible Belt prudes are the face of American Christianity. Don’t complain to me: it’s the Christians who ought to be deeply, shamefully embarrassed about this…but as usual, I expect they’ll find it easier to complain about those damned godless people who dare to hold up a mirror.
Oh, and evangelicals might want to think about the fact that unbelief is growing faster than any religion (although I suspect the poll results likely reflect a shallow response to the bad rep of Christianity than any fundamental shift in philosophy).
Of course they’re not. Unfotunately it’s the loud ones frothing at the mouth who get noticied and they tend to be the less rational ones. It’s a similar thing with Islam. The rational ones make less noise and so are noticed less by the media than the fundy nutjobs.
It’s not as news worthy when someone makes a rational comment, but once someone like Jerry Falwell starts talking about how the Jews are all dammed unless they accept Jesus as they’re saviour then that’s news.
And to finish my thought.
It’s the loud, fothing at the mouth types who wind up characterising our images of particular groups, since they are the ones we are most likely to have read about, or seen on TV.
So as you say if the more ration types want to reclaim the public image they nee dto get out there and disclaim them, and be noticed at the same time.
A piece of advice that I got from someone once was:
Never trust anyone without a vice.
Don’t complain to me: it’s the Christians who ought to be deeply, shamefully embarrassed about this�but as usual, I expect they’ll find it easier to complain about those damned godless people who dare to hold up a mirror.
No, I’m deeply and shamefully embarassed. I’m embarassed that people go around claiming that to be Christian is to be homophobic and creationist. That to be Christian is to think that Islam or atheism is evil. That to be Christian is to be so bone-stupid as to think that W is a good president. And so forth.
I’m a Christian, but I’m also a scientist; I’m fully aware that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and that the Universe (starting from Inflation) is 13.7 billion years old, and that humanity (and all other life forms we see today) arose from earlier life forms through the bloody process of natural selection acting on random mutations. I also am aware that much of the “Law” in Leviticus is crap, and even some of the 10 Commandments are crap– and that not only can you figure that out from modern science and a modern understanding of humanity and morality, but even from the words of Jesus, if you pay enough attention.
It pisses me off to no end that other Christians out there do such stupid, bone-ass ignorant assholic things in the name of the religion that it makes people like you think that Christians are bone-ass ignorant stupid closed-minded fools. It’s very sad.
I’m also not so sure what I can do about it; too much of my time and energy is consumed by just trying to keep myself sane as a pre-tenure science faculty member that I don’t have a lot of time to talk about these issues. I did join the “chr-astro” mailing list, only to leave shortly thereafter in horror as I figured out that there are scads of practicing astronomers out there who support Intelligent Design. People like me– rational scientists who also take a rational approach to their religion– seem to be in the closet in comparison to the fundamentalist wackos and the intelligent design apologists. It’s hard *not* to be in the closet when the Christians call us secularist evil-doers, and the atheist scientists like you tar us under the broad Christian brush as idiots.
-Rob
As I said, I know all Christians aren’t like that…but it is simply the case that your religion has acquired a serious PR problem. And I am going to be mean and tell you that the moderate, sensible, rational Christians who have let this go on should bear a good part of the blame.
And now they’re branching out into videogames!
http://www.leftbehindgames.com/
PZ, I think that is being a bit tough. There are hundreds of brands of Chritianity, let alone going into other religions. How can any person who has a particular view try to influence and control the others. Should Pentacostals be responsible for 7th day adventists? How do you feel about the fact that Molosovitch was an athiest? America is engaged in a horrible and meaningless war whose main aim seems to be to enrich Halliburton. Should you take the blame for not stopping the other 70% because you are an American?
No when someone has ignorant views like some of the fundamentalists, we should all give them hell, but it should not be more the responsibility of say a Quaker than an atheist.
If you want to have a [sarcasm]really good time[/sarcasm], you could try explaining to one of those Apocalypse-happy lunatics that the Book of Revelation was written as a political document lambasting the reign of Nero (because it was).
oldhippie,
The problem for Christians in the USA is that they’re sitting back and allowing a small sect to claim that they are the voice of all Christianity. If they let them do that (and they do) then why on earth should they be surprised to find themselves placed in the same box as those rabid eangelicals? After all, the evangelicals say those Christians are on their side, and those Christians don’t say otherwise (or certainly not very loudly). So why shouldn’t people think they’re all on the same side?
If some atheist does something horrible, and claims it’s because he’s atheist and that all atheists agree with him, then I’d say atheists have a special duty to denounce that person. I’d also say they would be stupid not to do it, since otherwise their silence suggests the nutjob is right and that they do agree with him. It’s only sensible to distance yourself from a madman; it’s just not sensible that Christians haven’t done so with the madmen of the rabid evangelical rightwing.
Do we hear many pastors’ voices clamoring against the rightwing’s nutcases? No, and why not? Why isn’t this one of the topics thundered from every pulpit every Sunday?
Somebody’s got to be tough about it. I rail against religion plenty; I’ve been raising kids to be open-minded freethinkers. And, you know, I get plenty of complaints from people about my anti-religious stance. What we need more, though, is Christians cussing out these dimwits on the right. So where are they? How many Spongs have you got?
QrazyQat
“Do we hear many pastors’ voices clamoring against the rightwing’s nutcases? No, and why not? Why isn’t this one of the topics thundered from every pulpit every Sunday?”
I don’t personally know because I don’t spend any time in church. If they were, how would you hear about it? I don’t think the press is going to bother to report it. I do occasionally on a radio news program hear some moderate Christians saying vaguely sensible things.
Pause
No, I concede your point, to augment my argument I went on Google and looked up Christians against Christian fundamentalists, there was nothing of that kind.
Rob Knop, you had better get your own moderate Christrian blog going…
PZ
Per your, “we ignore the theocratic Right at our peril”.
Who has the more serious PR[psychomarketing] problem, us or them, remains to be seen. To think otherwise is to “ignore the theocratic Right at our peril”.
Well, if there were still one unified Christian Church, which there hasn’t been for, what, 1700 years or so, we could tell these fundies to get the hell out of our Church. Then what? They form their own church. They don’t away, and call the parent church the apostate one.
The main problem is that the fundies are loud and not afraid to mix politics with religion. Mainstream Christians are softer spoken and, if they deal with politics at all, use lobby groups. (Like the Friends Committee on National Legislation – http://www.fncl.org) PZ may be overstating things, but he’s right in a way. Mainstream Christians need to get more aggressive and more vocal, to show politicians, the public and the rest of the world that religion does not have to be solely the province of right-wing extremist wingnuts.
In a way, we are in a religious war right here in the US — it’s our version of fighting the Taliban.
And this millenial bias has been in Washington before. Remember James Watt, Reagan’s interior secretary? He was ready to let loggers run free through the national parks, because he figured, come the Rapture, we wouldn’t need all those trees anyway.
WWJD, indeed.
How do you feel about the fact that Molosovitch was an athiest?
Milosevitch was a atheist? Interesting, since he was the messiah of the Serbs, who are about as Eastern Orthodox as you get…
Last I heard a whole lot of the Third Rank upper echelons (including their bosss) were Catholics, but nevermind…
“I also am aware that much of the “Law” in Leviticus is crap, and even some of the 10 Commandments are crap– and that not only can you figure that out from modern science and a modern understanding of humanity and morality, but even from the words of Jesus, if you pay enough attention.”
Actually Rob you might want to pay more attention to Jesus’ words, instead of Paul’s letters. Bible search is your friend. Just type in “commandments” and you will see Jesus endorsing them, and Paul disagreeing (Romans 13:9, Ephesians 2:16). Like the mainline denominations, you have been following Paul’s odd interpretation of Jesus’ death and resurrection, not Jesus himself. Paul apparently cared little about the pre-crucifixion Jesus.
If you read Jesus himself, and not Paul, you will find that Jesus wholeheartedly endorsed the ten commandments and the entire Hebrew law: Luke 18:20 “You know the commandments: “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.”(this quote appears in Mat and Mark as well)
Mark 12:29-31 “”The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.””
And if that doesn’t convince you, look at Mark 5:17-20:””Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus considered himself a Jewish Rabbi, he is called “Rabbi” 16 times in the gospels. In my opinion at least, Jesus wanted his followers to be Jews first, and Christians second. He was upset with the Jews around him because they were not upholding the law as he saw it, not because he disagreed with the law. In this way, orthodox Jews are actually more Christian than Christians! In fact, had Jesus known the world was actually going to last another 2,000 years with no “Kingdom of God” in sight, he might have just said “Hey forget everything I said and go back to being plain Jewish”.
In other ways, the evangelical crowd is more true to Jesus’ actual teachings than the “rationalized” Christianity you seem to support. For one thing, Jesus was an apocalypticist, just like the left-behind crowd: Mat 16:28 “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Throughout history, nothing has fueled religion quite like the specter of the Apocalypse.
Most bible historians believe that the rapid spread of the early church was fueled by apocalyptic beliefs, the same thing that fills the coffers of many modern churches. I know some Pentecostals I went to high school with were convinced the world would actually end within their lifetime. They literally thought the UN was going to take over the world, lead by the “antichrist.” You have to understand how irrelevant science seems when you believe this sort of thing.
There’s Spong, and Cornel West. That’s about it.
But the Fundie movement is as much a symptom as a cause. It didn’t materialize ex-nihilo. The world moved on, and straight white guys got bumped from the unearned pedestal. So now we have a politically powerful response to that, and religion gives it legitimacy. That they lean towards Apocalyptic Dispensationalism betrays their cynicism, and that is, I think, the root of the problem.
People like me– rational scientists who also take a rational approach to their religion– seem to be in the closet in comparison to the fundamentalist wackos and the intelligent design apologists.
Rob Knop–Does it seem to you that it’s got worse in the last 5 years?
From here, it looks like the Republican regime are the ones who’ve empowered theocrats and whackadoos into the public face of American Christianity, primarily because the GOP is so profoundly dependant on the support of those particular Christians. Christians who do their own thinking and have that “render unto Caesar” thing down have been relatively marginalized.
(It doesn’t help that nice, sensible people who pray occasionally, mind their own business, leave judgements to God, try to be genuinely charitable etc., simply aren’t as telegenic as some crowd of Bible-bangers frothing at the mouth because, eg, some people could be having sex in a way they didn’t approve of.)
Last I heard a whole lot of the Third Rank upper echelons (including their bosss) were Catholics, but nevermind…
you mean Third Reich? since the nazi party started out in large part in bavaria many of the higher ups had roman catholic backgrounds, but the nazi party itself seems to have leaned toward de-christistianization in some fort. martin bormann sent out a famous memo to that effect, the nazi attitude toward christianity was just as hostile, but their methods were more subtle. 95% of the german people remained christian, but i have seen literature which suggests that 90% of the officer corps of the SS had become “god believers,” a sort of vague pagan theism, by the 1940s.
also, kosmin’s 1994 book one nation under god suggested that the majority of people with “no religion” did believe in god or a higher spirit. the number of atheists probably is no more than 5% of the population, and those who avow atheism or agnosticism seems around 1%. but you can see the data that the link PZ pointed to referenced here.
1990
Atheist –
Agnostic 1,186,000
Humanist 29,000
Secular
No Religion 13,116,000
2000
Atheist
902,000
991,000
49,000
53,000
27,486,000
in other words, only ~1% of the american population will acede to being to the term “atheist” or “agnostic.” and the implication is that most of the people with “no religion” are theists, they simply have dropped out of organized and institutionalized faiths. which, re: the point of this post still speaks to the same positive develoment since unorganized religous faith is not usually converted into theocracy.
*sigh*
Somebody’s got to be tough about it. I rail against religion plenty
You are almost as much a part of the problem as the kooks. By railing against religion you help to reinforce the dichotomy the kooks want – you can either be an atheist or a kook and Christianity is far too fundamental to many people for them to want to go for Atheism. You’ll win a few but they’ll probably split for the kooks about 4:1
How many Spongs have you got?
Pretty much the entire Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) (at least if they are anything like the British set), and the entire Unitarian Universalist church. Throw in a lot of Episcopalians and others.
The situation in Britain is much better – we also have Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Cantebury and head of the Church of England (and almost certainly the best known religious figure in the country)), the Christian Socialists, Affirming Catholicism, Rabbi Lionel Blue (probably the most listened to religious figure in the country – although he tends to produce trite homilies) and others.
I also am aware that much of the “Law” in Leviticus is crap,
Hey, don’t knock Leviticus. If it wasn’t for Leviticus, we might not realize that the big guy upstairs in no uncertain terms does not want us eating eagles & ospreys (11:3), vultures (11:4), ravens (11:5), owls, nighthawks, cuckoos, & hawks (11:16), cormorants (11:17), pelicans (11:18), and storks (11:19). This advice has gotten me through more hard times than I can tell you.
Well thanks a lot, george. Now I have to convert back to Christendom. God dammit.
Well, if there were still one unified Christian Church, which there hasn’t been for, what, 1700 years or so, we could tell these fundies to get the hell out of our Church. Then what? They form their own church. They don’t away, and call the parent church the apostate one.
The main problem is that the fundies are loud and not afraid to mix politics with religion. Mainstream Christians are softer spoken and, if they deal with politics at all, use lobby groups. (Like the Friends Committee on National Legislation – http://www.fncl.org) PZ may be overstating things, but he’s right in a way. Mainstream Christians need to get more aggressive and more vocal, to show politicians, the public and the rest of the world that religion does not have to be solely the province of right-wing extremist wingnuts.
In a way, we are in a religious war right here in the US — it’s our version of fighting the Taliban.
And this millenial bias has been in Washington before. Remember James Watt, Reagan’s interior secretary? He was ready to let loggers run free through the national parks, because he figured, come the Rapture, we wouldn’t need all those trees anyway.
WWJD, indeed.
Sorry ’bout the double-posting. Computer had a memory-fart.
Typical. Blame the atheist for the failings of your nutty religion.
Milosevic was a neocon:
a) he was an atheist but used religion to fire up the masses,
b) the only response to any problem is use of force.
It’s not as simple as “well, the moderate Christians should make themselves heard”. The medium is the message; the belligerent, high-visibility tactics that work so well at propagating the extremists’ message are very hard to separate from that extremism. Much of what makes the moderates moderate is also what makes them quiet.
For instance, the first half of Matthew 6 is concerned with admonishing people against waving their faith in others’ faces: “when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men… go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.”
Do the moderates have a moral duty to combat extremism? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean they need to fight it using the extremists’ tactics, tactics which don’t match the moderates’ abilities or morality. IME, most moderates are most effective at presenting their own position by actions and example, rather than by preaching.
Which is not to say that there *aren’t* moderate preachers – Spong is a high-profile example, and reallivepreacher.com is a favourite of mine. But by their nature, moderate pronouncements are never going to get the same volume of coverage as simplistic bigotry; hatred and arrogance make better headlines than peace and meekness ever will. When discourse is dominated by those who shout the loudest, the fault lies less with those who speak softly than with those who don’t listen carefully (and so encourage volume at the expense of thought).
If it wasn’t for Leviticus, we might not realize that the big guy upstairs in no uncertain terms does not want us eating eagles & ospreys (11:3), vultures (11:4), ravens (11:5)
Well, that’s a relief. :)
Students of Darwin should understand the limitations of essentialist thinking. Even as a system of errors, Christianity doesn’t have an essence. Groups calling themselves Christian have been on every side of every issue and this limitless flexibility is unlikely to change in the future. Of course, people will probably continue to believe in belief–the phrase is Daniel Dennett’s–and this sociological universal and sheer inertia guarantee that whatever people wind up professing will be at least analogous to a religion and that most of those born in these parts will continue to call it Christianty.
Either that, or they’re afraid to publicly identify with the “atheist”/”agnostic” labels because of the routine vilification of those groups (or they actually believe some of it and think “I haven’t firebombed any churches this week, so I must not be a real atheist”). Take your pick.
As for the Nazis… the Christian revisionist attempts to distance the Nazis from Christianity are a feat second only to Holocaust denial itself. While we can’t reach into Hitler’s brain and find out what he actually believed, he used religious language *frequently*. And, of course, who can forget that Germany’s (indeed, most of Europe’s) centuries-old tradition of hating and persecuting Jews was sponsored by Christian churches. Hitler’s delusional hatred not only grew out of this tradition, but resonated with it to fuel his rise to power.
Eventually, this came to be eclipsed by a cult of personality centered on Hitler while Jesus’s more inconvenient teachings were overlooked, and if the Nazis had survived, they might be more “Hitlerist” than Christian today. But it would be an offshoot of Christianity in the same way Christianity it itself an offshoot of Judaism.
Sorry, Christians, when your chickens come home to roost, it’s no good pretending they *actually* belong to your neighbor.
In a similar vein, I have to admit that the Soviet Union publicly disavowed religion and can therefore be fairly described as “atheist”; but that doesn’t put them in the same camp with *rationalist* atheists like me, PZ or Dawkins, any more than Hitler was in the mainstream of Christian thought then or now. The Soviets had dogmas every bit as strong as a religion’s, just ones that didn’t involve gods.
The ‘interface’ of Christianity and the Third Reich is laid out pretty exhaustively here:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
FWIW, I have a devout Catholic friend who readily admits, with embarrassment, that Hitler plain and simple was a Catholic, no qualifications. He was never excommunicated, so technically he died a Catholic.
Also, from what I’ve read, among the Nazi higherups, only Heinrich Himmler really took that Aryan/Nazi paganism seriously.
However much one might want to split semantic hairs as to whether AH was ‘really a Christian’ (most of this rhetoric seems to take the form of ‘he did things I disagree with, so he can’t have been a Christian), it’s impossible to deny for a second that Christianity was an absolutely essential factor in making Nazi Germany what it was.
Then again, Christianity also had a huge influence on such benign nations as Sweden and Canada, so what are ya gonna do…
James Gambrell: Searching the Bible to find out what Jesus “really said” is about as useful as watching Disney’s “Anastasia” to find out what Rasputin was really like.
All the Gospels can tell you is what the community that produced them thought Jesus had said, wished Jesus had said, believed that he would have said if anybody had asked him, or imagined that he was currently saying from his exalted post-mortem perch in the sky.
Violet,
Your right, Christians put a lot of words in Jesus’ mouth after his death, like his prognostications about his betrayal and coming death.
However they were unable to cover their tracks perfectly because the gospel writers usually only had one or two sources to work with, and worked somewhat independantly. Historians today are able to dig accurate information out of the bible by using a number of criteria. One of the major criteria, dissimiliarity, works for all the quotations I posted. Dissimiliarity refers to an attribution that you wouldn’t expect the author of a text to have made up, because it doesn’t reflect positively on their agenda. For example, since many of the gospel writers wanted to villify the jews, they wouldn’t have made up quotations from Jesus supporting Jewish law.
Bible searches in fact are very good ways of looking for inconsistencies in the bible, inconsistencies that wouldn’t be there if the original writers could have searched all the relevent text instantly the way we can =).
Don’t think I’m not pulling this stuff out of my rear either, I just finished a class on historically accurate interpretations of the New Testement and wanted to share.
Anyway I was responding to Rob who mentioned “but even from the words of Jesus, if you pay attention”. Where else would one go for the words of Jesus if not from the gospels? I wanted to show christian apologists that Jesus’ own words can undermine their arguments.
If it wasn’t for Leviticus, we might not realize that the big guy upstairs in no uncertain terms does not want us eating eagles & ospreys (11:3), vultures (11:4), ravens (11:5), owls, nighthawks, cuckoos, & hawks (11:16), cormorants (11:17)
Damn, I’ve eaten cormorant already, guess I’m screwed now. But it was tasty in a “concentrated fish” kind of way.
Then again, Christianity also had a huge influence on such benign nations as Sweden and Canada, so what are ya gonna do…
Sweden has many redeeming qualities, true, but they were also on pretty good terms with the Third Reich in their time. (or they had to be, depending on the interpretation)
How do you feel about the fact that Molosovitch was an athiest?
How do you feel about the fact that the BTK and the Green River were devout Christians?
Yesterdays post on Iran had me railing on my blog about how I grew up in a religious school for my jr and sr high years, where I learned about Creationism, and missed science. It made me think about family members who are agnostic, but supported Bush and his idiocy for a short while. I literally remember having screaming matches in my house over how Bush wanted a part in bringing in the Rapture and Apocalypse with the new war in Iraq. At that time, I classed myself as Christian, but over the last few years I have come to see that religion is nothing more than a grasp for power. And an excuse for short sightedness. I heard twenty odd years ago that Jesus was coming back imminently, and was appalled as well as frightened then. I am furious now. I cannot believe that some schmuck could for one second think that by purveying war and torture and global financial insecurity, that he is doing anyones will but his own, and those who stand beside him.
Religion is supposed to bring out the best in people. Whenever it fails to do so, the excuse is that we are imperfect humans, and only God is perfect. I think not. I think that religion is used like a weapon on all sides to control thoughts, actions and institutions, so that the status quo stays the same. Together we are stronger divided we fall. I thought of that today when I heard on CBC news that a man who had converted to Christianity in Afghanistan was possibly going to be sentenced to death under Sharia law. Why would you kill him? Because if you do you lessen the chances of others doing the same thing, and your faction losing power bit by bit.
Religion keeps women in check. I went to a school that blamed young girls for turning the male teachers on. HUH?? What happened to responsibility for oneself? It was explained away by telling us that men were more visual so they had less control. Ummmm…Fruitloops and F*&#knuts to that. So because of that we dressed like the Amish- except for those who had parents of influence- they could wear what they wanted. Power and control. This is the same school that 13 years after I left, and it was supposedly better, and received public school money, had a young pregnant woman apologize to the whole jr. high and high school for her sin- while the guy had no consequences in public, because he only attended church at this place.
These are the people who believe abortion is bad, yet deny single parents financial help. They will travel the world for a white baby, but do not wish to raise a native or black child that needs a home in their own country.
These are the people who are running Canada and the USA right now. Their supporters are well organized and believe in enough of the same things that the differences are ignored. They reach people, tax free, not by preaching in pulpits, but by taking the message to small home bible studies. I have been to one of these- it is very difficult to have a difference of opinion with polite strangers with whom you have to look in the eye. When they talk about the gay agenda or abortion or government interference, they fully believe they are right and that God will win out. When their guy gets into office, they praise Him. And they eagerly await His return, with the expectancy of a child waiting for Christmas morning.
And the rest of us- we don’t have that level of grass roots engagement or organization. We agree on fundamentals, but have no place in which to gather in person and discuss strategy and plan for the future. We know that politicians are just that- nothing more than Figureheads who must appeal to the lowest common denominator, and who have no real sense of urgency when it comes to science, the environment, and Reason. They try to please the rationalists, the revolutionaries, and the religious left, ultimately alienating many in each group. Which is why they won’t win in a time of political and economic uncertainty. People in fear need a leader who KNOWS- not someone who fully admoits they don’t know what happens next.
Well, I have hollered and raved enough. I am no going to eat supper, drink my mango punch, and watch my Sunday T.V.- because nothing I say is going to make a damned bit of difference. At least I said it though…..
.
Dang, I screwed up the citations — in case you’re checking my references, those first three should read 11:13, 11:14, and 11:15.
We know this is important stuff, because the same laundry list of unclean animals appears in Deuteronomy 14:12-14:18. So if God chose to write it down in the Bible TWICE, you know it’s gotta be important.
Oh yeah, we can’t eat bats, either.
It’s been a long while since I read the christian bible, so please correct me if I’m wrong…
To the commenter who suggested reading the writings of Jesus instead of Paul’s or any other epistle writer. I don’t think that is actually possible. I am not aware that even one syllable in the entire panoply of christian writing (even the new testament) was actually penned by Jesus. My understanding is that everything was written by others who, at best, gave accounts of what he supposedly said.
Students of Darwin should understand the limitations of essentialist thinking. Even as a system of errors, Christianity doesn’t have an essence.
It’s not about essentialism. The problem is that all religions get by in modern society because the cultural norm is that religion, as a whole, should be respected. This is rationalized as a corrolary to religious freedom, but it’s not. Freedom means that we shouldn’t discriminate based on religion — like take away anyone’s rights, property or opportunity based on beliefs. Theists, including Christians of all stripes, extrapolate from this that any criticism of religion is de-facto discrimination, and thus critique violates freedom of religion.
Naturally atheists don’t feel this way. We make a career of poking holes in religious dogma and otherwise ridiculing absurd supernatural beliefs, which angers theists no end since they feel like we’re violating a sacred trust. We’re not.
What’s sininster, and what I think Dr Myers aludes to here, is that no matter how egregious the Christian Right get in this country, the Christian left resist denoucing them. They fear that if they pay insufficient respect to other religions then they will be legitimate targets too. This makes them not only cowards, afraid of defending their beliefs without special deference, but complicit in the attrocities of the right.
Oh yeah, we can’t eat bats, either.
He got that right!
Okay, the Fundamentalist act wacky at times, but it is the “wacky scientist” that we should fear, this and thousands of examples of scientist who want a lab and a challenge, and it seems they will do anything for anyone who provides the lab and ample funding … oh yeah, that anyone is more often than not the DOD.
The Dahlgren scientists’ discovery of a revolutionary approach for using plastic materials for Navy ordnance applications has “the potential for providing an entirely new class of weapons… and has opened the door to applications that will have an impact on the Navy and the other services for years to come,” according to Navy officials.
Secretary of the Navy Gordon England recognized them for their co-discovery of reactive materials effects that “promises to have continuing, far-reaching consequences for the warfighter.” In the citation, England called Mock and Holt’s discovery, “a new and revolutionary approach for using plastic polymer and plastic polymer/ metal combination materials for Navy ordnance applications.”
“The citation for Drs. Holt and Mock talks about what they did in general terms, because a lot about what they really did we can’t talk about,” said Rear Adm. Macy.
Holt and Mock’s work that led to their discovery began in 1971 when they built a 26-foot-long, 40 millimeter bore gun to conduct experiments in shockwave phenomena. In 1991, Holt and Mock fired projectiles at targets with the gas gun and used its research capabilities – the ability to control the projectiles’ velocity and take high-speed pictures at impact to measure the response of the target – to make the reactive materials effects discovery that they were cited for in the award. Their experiments in shock physics over the past 34 years have resulted in numerous discoveries that are impacting the Navy and other services for years to come.
Considering the rising and dangerous political influence of “wacky scientists,” I suppose we should be very afraid of them. You could point out some relevant things about science and politics, but Lewontin already wrote that book.
Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/03/19/were-creeping-up-on-you/ are discussing both the Stoeltje article PZ links to, and the earlier discussion here and at Mooneys blog about “how we should speak about science and evolution and religion in the public sphere”.
The later is perhaps OT here, but I think it interesting that Sean “think that the truth-telling attitude has its strategic benefits” in a “broader cultural conversation”. He exemplifies why in a link.
Somewhat more on topic, about Stoeltje’s article, it’s an interesting view of society at large, and it starts out well. “People may harbor negative views about Jews, Catholics, Muslims and evangelicals, but they know they’re not supposed to voice those views, so they don’t. But it’s still OK to say anything bad you want about atheists.”
But, as Sean also discusses, the article ends badly with saying both that atheists base their morals on reason alone (so they have no feelings or sympathy) and that it emerged naturally through an evolutionary process. Two common mistakes, but here combined into mere nonsense.
>>if you want to have a [sarcasm]really good time[/sarcasm], you could try explaining to one of those Apocalypse-happy lunatics that the Book of Revelation was written as a political document lambasting the reign of Nero (because it was).>>
That may be why it appears to apply to current events because there are always dictators, war, famine and pestilence and in ways one is like another.
And I am going to be mean and tell you that the moderate, sensible, rational Christians who have let this go on should bear a good part of the blame.
Yes — just as all Americans, you included, bear a substantial part of the blame for our horrible world image, given that it’s based on the actions of the people we have elected.
But, just as in that case, it’s not really clear exactly what I’m supposed to do about it as an individual. And, it is very disheartening to be constantly reminded that I’m partly to blame, in either of those situations, and is more likely to lead to giving up than constructive action.
-Rob
The problem for Christians in the USA is that they’re sitting back and allowing a small sect to claim that they are the voice of all Christianity.
No we’re not! It’s just that nobody’s listening when we say that the fundamentalists are full of shit.
If you want evidence that the mainstream Christians *are*, in fact, not just sitting back and allowing the fundies to claim to be the voice of all Christianity, look at this article on the Nat. Ctr. Sci. Ed. website.
-Rob
Rob Knop, you had better get your own moderate Christrian blog going…
Click on my URL — although that’s mostly a science blog, I will very occasionally say something about how I can consider myself a Christian without rejecting anything from modern science. I do address it a little bit obliquely in the second entry on the blog (which is why I started the thing in the first place).
-Rob
I agree with that completely. You think I don’t feel a terrible guilt at what our idiots in Washington DC are doing? That perhaps I think we should turn the problem over to the Republicans to solve?
Ochreous,
People keep forgetting that my comments were addressed to Christians, not atheists!
Anyway, you are aware of the many academics who spend their lives trying to do just that, aren’t you? Jesus is in fact relatively well documented as ancient historical figures go As I’ve already explained, it is possible to tell which sayings are more likely to be real than others. And it is possible to tell which books are by Paul and which aren’t.
“it is the “wacky scientist” that we should fear”
Try these links to see some outspoken groups who dare to hold up a mirror to your examples:
http://www.pugwash.org/
http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/
http://www.inesglobal.com/
I had to separate the links since 3 links in a commentary seems to lead to manual review before posting.
You are almost as much a part of the problem as the kooks. By railing against religion you help to reinforce the dichotomy the kooks want
Typical. Blame the atheist for the failings of your nutty religion.
PZ, you’re being unfair.
Consider this. What would you say about the people who want to blame all of the Arab world and all people of Arab extraction for terrorists acts? Are all Palestinians to blame for suicide bombings in Israel? No. But lots of people say that they are. If somebody comes back and speaks against the non-Palastinians for lumping all Palastinans together as suicide bombers, would you say, “Typical. Blame the non-Palastineans for the nutty suicide bombers.”
In a sense, that’s what you’re doing.
Now, yes, I do agree that Christians who aren’t wacko do have a responsibility to step up and speak out agains the whacko ones– in the same sense that all of the the Palastinians are to blame for the actions of Hamas, now that they’ve elected them leaders of the Palastinean Authority, and just as all of us are to blame for the crap that W and his gang are pulling.
But by tarring everybody in a broad group, some very visible and well-publicized subgroup of which performs antisocial actions, with the same brush, you can cause harm yourself.
-Rob
Don’t think I’m not pulling this stuff out of my rear either, I just finished a class on historically accurate interpretations of the New Testement and wanted to share..
That’s great. I actually know this subject quite well, and I was correcting you because though you’re on the right track, you’re still putting far too much credence in Gospel reports of Jesus’s words. And the dissimilarity test doesn’t hold for everything you cited. (Also, note that Q counts as one attestation, not twice just because it’s in Matt and Luke. And when Matt and Luke crib from Mark, that counts as one attestation, not three.)
Where else would one go for the words of Jesus if not from the gospels?
A few places, actually: 1. The non-canonical gospels, e.g., The Gospel of Thomas, which may be very close to the form of Q. 2. Paul’s letters, the few occasions he refers to the word of the Lord. 3. The Didache, indirectly.
“evidence that the mainstream Christians *are*, in fact, not just sitting back”
I don’t think it adresses all of PZ’s complaints – but it’s good and well done. The initiative come from a scientist, BTW, so perhaps you can find some support in your own efforts.
Well, considering that most ancient historical figures are not documented at all, that’s not saying a lot.
But correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not the case that there is in fact no historical ‘documentation’ of Jesus other than the Gospels & Paul?
But correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not the case that there is in fact no historical ‘documentation’ of Jesus other than the Gospels & Paul?
Josephus refers to Jesus, and though the passage was certainly redacted by a later Christian editor (with the addition of such giveaway phrases as “He was the Christ”), the consensus is that there was an original, unchristianized reference there to Jesus. (Of course Josephus was writing many decades after the fact.)
The other early, independent attestation is from Tacitus, who refers to the followers of “Chrestus” in the time of Nero.
impatientpatient
Thanks for posting that. All of us need to hear as much inside knowledge as we can get. More would be good.
I want to make an observation for anyone listening which is going to sound trivial but is important.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the theocratic study groups aren’t “discussing strategy and planning for the future”, they simply follow instructions and cheerlead for each other. Right?
If the rest of us could get togther in 10,000 groups equivilant groups across America discussing strategy and the future, we’d end up with 10,000 conflicting plans. That is, after each group spent 2 years wrangling over everybody’s individual know-it-all plans inside the group. Perhaps this thread is a good example.
The people running the U.S. are there because they’ve spent 40 years being very focused and disciplined and figuring out scientifically how to organize erverything through media and via churches, etc. Forty years ago they were a tiny, ineffectual part of the Republican party and now they’ve nearly completed purging it of internal opposition. They are very disciplined at all levels. The footsoldiers you talk about believe they are right, but they’re not sitting around arguing about it or theorizing about it or bemoaning how fucked up everything is when things don’t go their way.
Their leaders have a systematic, very smart, long-researched and long-developed plan and everybody’s following it.
We got squat.
That’s our fault. Each of our’s fault. At this point, hard as it is to believe, those theocrats sitting around rubbing each other’s egos, are proving they are a hell of a lot smarter than we are.
Of course, we’ll argue about that too. My position — their results speak for themselves.
“But correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not the case that there is in fact no historical ‘documentation’ of Jesus other than the Gospels & Paul?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_myth, with many links :
“Presently, many New Testament scholars and historians consider the question as resolved in favour of Jesus’ historicity. Nevertheless, Earl Doherty has infused the Jesus Myth theory with fresh vigour with his website and publication of his book, The Jesus Puzzle. Doherty’s treatment of the issue has received much attention on the internet from both sides of the debate, including favourable reviews by skeptics Dr. Robert M. Price and Richard Carrier [2].
No peer-reviewed work advocating the Jesus Myth theory exists and it has had little impact on the consensus among New Testament academics of Jesus’ historicity.”
Oh, and specifically: “As far as is known at present, only about six or seven early non-Christian references to Jesus appear to exist.”
OTOH, someone on The Panda’s Thumb blog presented an impressive list of characteristics that this figure shared with many major religions similar figures, not only from Mediterranean regions. Apparently such lists are considered less well founded, but OTOH the idea that there were at least some local borrowing of myths aren’t totally unsupported.
I’m going to be boring, and quote myself >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All religions kill, or enslave, or torture.
To verify this, one need only read a very little history, or contemporary newspaper reports.
At this point, an excuse is always presented by the ‘believers’:
“They are ( or were ) not PROPER Christians / Muslims / Marxists / etc. . We’re different!”
Oh, yeah?
O.S.D. is still part of the Roman Catholic church, isn’t it? Is Ian Paisley a Christian minister, or not? Are the Persian and Taliban ayatollahs clerics, or not? Were Stalin, Mao Zhedong and Pol Pot Marxists, or not?
Besides which, if these, and similar cases, are, or were not “proper believers”, why do those proper believers never, ever do anything about it, except whinge?
So, we have another Corollary: 5a ] The bigots are the true believers.
There is a dangerous trap here. By fighting and studying the evil dragon of their opponent(s) and/or oppressors, a group, sect, or religion can easily become its’ own evil mirror-image. Three current (2005) cases will suffice. I am sure any intelligent reader will be able to supply their own additional exemplars.
[I] Virtually everything Ian Paisley and his followers say about the RC church and its “evil” are true, and correct. But they have failed to see that they have also become a narrow, bigoted, bloodstained and oppressive reflection of the thing they most despise and fear.
[II] The previous Pope (John-Paul II) faithfully opposed the cult of Nazism, (or did he, really?) and the Stalinist version of Marxism. And, he became dragon too. Nowhere as evil as Adolf, or Joe, but a narrow, oppressive, censorious dictator, opposed to freedom of thought, reason, or logic, nonetheless. The current Pope (Benedict II), beautifully parodied by the magazine Private Eye as Cardinal Ratpoison, is even worse. His rampant homophobia, his apparent joining of the Hitler-Jugend before it became compulsory, his authoritarianism need one go on?
[III] Persia / Iran, where opposition to the rule of the late Shah has produced a classic theocratic state. Of course, as always happens, an even more extreme movement, the Taliban, appeared in Afghanistan. Both these states have automatically enslaved half of their own populations – the female half. These are true “communities of saints”, as were Calvin’s Geneva, Cromwellian England, or Stalin’s Soviet Union. Perhaps the best example of a total theocracy, where even when the personal representative of the people’s enslavement dies, they mourn, rather than celebrate, is North Korea.
Some more thoughts on this topic.
If one looks at the actual record and behaviour of Christian “saints”, or their equivalents in other belief-systems, one finds that most of them were complete egotistical bastards.
“Saint” Cyril of Alexandria ( Inventor of the doctrine of virgin birth ), Bernard of Clairvaux, Trotsky, and Joshua are all classic exemplars. People like that oddly matched pair, Saladin the Kurd, and Francis of Assisi are the exception, not the rule.
There is a relevant, subsidiary question.
The Josepheus passage is controversial. It is at the least severely edited by a Christian and at most entirely added. If you remove the entire paragraph, the flow of the book is not disrupted. The paragraph seems slightly out of place.
I don’t think there are any other direct references to Jesus, and only a few that can be interpreted as Christians from around those early times.
Fascinating area though. Earl Doherty pens an interesting argument. I’m not decided either way, but i think the question is a whole lot more open than the apologists will lead you to believe.
You are almost as much a part of the problem as the kooks. By railing against religion you help to reinforce the dichotomy the kooks want
Typical. Blame the atheist for the failings of your nutty religion.
Given that my religion is closer to Atheism than anything else, I have this right. Despite your knee-jerk assumptions, I am not a Christian (despite the best efforts of my parents).
And what I am blaming you for is having all the political savvy of a woodlouse. The single thing you can do to help the kooks the most is provide enough useless “pesecution” that they can pat themselves on the back say they are being persecuted for their faith, not enough persecution that being a Christian is actually a challenge, and to prevent them having an easy exit from the kookier forms of Christianity without losing a huge amount of face (in addition to the frankly coercive measures that are often applied by the kooks).
The best way to wreck religion is the way Britain (and much of the rest of Europe) treats it. Treat the religious as if they were e.g. members of the SCA, support the religious liberals, massively reduce poverty, and generally leech the fire out of things . Remember that kooks of all stripes love the fire.
In short, I don’t disagree with your motives – but you could hardly be doing a better job of acting for the kooks if you were on their payroll.
A fairly small group of fringe millennialist religious have been promoted ceaselessly by the current party in power for the last 25 years, and they’ve taken on influence in huge disproportion to their numbers. As with pretty much everything that’s useful to the party in power, they’ve been portrayed as the unopposed bearers of truth in their particular arena by the media, despite the fact that most of the major religions vehemently disagree with most of their stands.
Now we have their preachers (Dobson, koff) giving interviews about how Jesus doesn’t really care about helping the poor or not killing, he wants the evangelical right to solidify their secular power first.
Handing government power to religion that makes itself useful to the party in power is not just damaging to government, it’s fatal to religion.
That said, what Dobson et al are engaged in is not religion. It’s politics.
Blurring that distinction is going to put you into opposition with a lot of people who are otherwise on your side.
The current crop of whited sepulchres get pretty much everything wrong, much of it for self-interested and thoroughly secular reasons. Leaving aside the Orwellian aspects, it doesn’t seem useful to allow them the credibility of accepting their definition of religion.
It’s just one step further down the same road as not allowing them to define science.
What percentage of “New Testament scholars” are 1) trained historians rather than theologians and 2) non-Christians?
“Christians put a lot of words in Jesus’ mouth after his death, like his prognostications about his betrayal and coming death.
However they were unable to cover their tracks perfectly because the gospel writers usually only had one or two sources to work with, and worked somewhat independantly. Historians today are able to dig accurate information out of the bible by using a number of criteria.” James Gambrell
I know serious scholars have been doing a lot of hard work on this (maximum respect for that) but aren’t there limits to how far you can get?
Patricia Crone notes (in ‘Slaves on Horses’, IIRC) that most of the stories about Muhammad and early Islam that
we can make sense of relate to the theological/political debates of the Islamic 2nd century.
Moreover, the bits that don’t are arguably fragments left over from even earlier debates that we know nothing much about.
We have no reason to assume that they are a more accurate description of what happened than the stories that were clearly produced to make, say, a Shi’ite case for something.
Even if the stories are true (which we’ve no way of telling), they would have survived because they served a purpose,
while other stories that didn’t make anyone’s point would have been forgotten.
So we don’t know and have no way of knowing the truth about what Jesus or Muhammad really said. The choice is between doubt and faith.
“Considering the rising and dangerous political influence of ‘wacky scientists,’ I suppose we should be very afraid of them. You could point out some relevant things about science and politics”
The point is, wacky scientists have already done the damage, are doing the damage and are funded to continue to do the damage. Wacky scientists are bought by the highest bidder. Wacky scientist created the US Army Natick Labs. Wacky scientist are fiddling around in labs at this very moment, ‘discovering’ new ways to destroy.
A wacky fundamentalist can be engaged in silly debates where the light of Truth shines upon the silliness; the wacky scientist is hidden from view, amply funded, amply happy to have resources to experiment to their heart’s content, that is, as long as you don’t mention morality or ethics, which of course the leaders of the military-industrial complex would never dream of doing.
Wacky scientist sell their souls to those who provide them with ‘science to do while being paid to do it’ and the atheist scientist doesn’t have a soul to be purchased (after all, souls are for the superstitious) and when handed the keys to a fully equiped lab will rationalize whatever ‘problem’ they are funded to solve.
Earl Doherty’s work is very interesting, but it isn’t exactly mainstream. Of course, the rigorous consensus is very close to his position anyway. For those new to his position, reading the parts that he calls the “smoking gun” is worth a trip over to his site to read.
As for the Josephus passages, that’s at most the only contemporary reference to the Jesus of the NT (there are of course other Jesuses). This is astounding, if anything like the gospel stories are what happened. I for one think the Josephus references are a forgery/interpolation for much of the usual reasons.
BTW, the mythicist position is not new. It first originated in the 19th century, as I recall.
“Unbelief is growing…” Thomas Covenant will be so happy.
” Wacky scientists are bought by the highest bidder. ”
Said highest bidder usually being a religious fundamentalist of one stripe or another. Your point?
A wacky fundamentalist can be engaged in silly debates where the light of Truth shines upon the silliness;
Or they blow themselves up along with some other people.
…the wacky scientist is hidden from view, amply funded, amply happy to have resources to experiment to their heart’s content, that is, as long as you don’t mention morality or ethics, which of course the leaders of the military-industrial complex would never dream of doing.
Stop whining about science already. Unless we stop all of science and technology right now, people are going to discover more potentially dangerous things sooner or later. Like new viruses. Or make such things (Samuel Colt wasn’t a scientist, you know). Then all people are going to have to take responsibility and manage those things, not cry for scientists to make everything better again.
In the other thread many people pointed out that the most pressing issue right now is the Iranian nuclear program. Are you so childish that you think the Iranian scientists working with this are just wacky, carefree atheists looking for a fat paycheck, and if we wag our finger they will stop developing weapons?
Forget the Apocalypse, do the Apocalypso!
. . . but how is it there are CUCKOOS + HAWKS??
Sorry, sorry. Sometimes you just have to laugh, since slamming your head into the desk repeatedly isn’t all that useful . .
‘ I’m embarassed that people go around claiming that to be Christian is to be homophobic and creationist. That to be Christian is to think that Islam or atheism is evil.’
Rob,
Fundie Christians against gays are correct in what the bible says, same for creationists. Same for thinking atheist’s and any member of any other religion may be damned. Most of the bible is vague at best but these areas it’s clear.
My question to you is why are you embarrassed by the very thing you embrace? In your religious view is PZ going to hell?
Elaborate please. If you say yes you simply can’t claim the high ground with anyone as your belief is far worse than any fundie who hates gays. Although they probably also share this view.
It seems to me the problem is taking a seemingly smart, kind person like you and making you defend something that ultimately makes no sense. That is the shame of religion.
I also am aware that much of the “Law” in Leviticus is crap, and even some of the 10 Commandments are crap– and that not only can you figure that out from modern science and a modern understanding of humanity and morality, but even from the words of Jesus, if you pay enough attention.
Yeah, good thing God decided to jump out of heaven like that.
[sarcasm]
He should do that everyday, but I guess once is plenty enough, or is too much trouble, or something like that. God: “I already did it once, I dont’ have to do it again, nya nya, nya nya nya nya. Don’t put me under the microscope, I don’t like it, waaah waahh, waaah.”
[/sarcasm]
“i think the question is a whole lot more open than the apologists will lead you to believe”
“What percentage of “New Testament scholars” are 1) trained historians rather than theologians and 2) non-Christians?”
The wiki page looked rather onesided to me too. It was that they mentioned the lack of peerreview that gave it some credence; it’s a checkable and strong claim.
“Earl Doherty’s work is very interesting, but it isn’t exactly mainstream. Of course, the rigorous consensus is very close to his position anyway.”
I would like for that to be true (and the Wikipedia page in need of revision) since that was what I thought before I read it.
Doherty writes at the end ( http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/home.htm ): “Despite all efforts of historical criticism during the past two centuries, the origins of Christianity remain hidden in deep darkness. Even modern research has not been successful in throwing full light upon them. According to Radical Criticism, this is due to the fact that the decisive presuppositions of previous work on the history of early Christianity have never been questioned methodically.”
I guess the need more “teaching of the controversy” and “critical analysis”! ;-)
“I would like for that to be true (and the Wikipedia page in need of revision) since that was what I thought before I read it.” – I would like for that to be true, and the Wikipedia page in need of revision, since that was what I thought before I read it.
“I guess the need” – I guess we need
I guess _I_ need more coffee! (Still on the first cup…)
“the atheist scientist doesn’t have a soul to be purchased (after all, souls are for the superstitious) and when handed the keys to a fully equiped lab will rationalize whatever ‘problem’ they are funded to solve.”
Atheists have morals, same as everyone, and they will make him/her act accordingly.
To suggest otherwise is… wacky.
Not really, because there is no clear proof any of the authors of the NT wrote it “prior” to 50 years after the fact, very little if any proof that its all actually about one person, almost no evidence that any of it happened, save for 1-2 cases where people with similar names where recorded in the right places for “those” events to have at least happened, but not proving who they happened to. Worse, there exists some evidence that the first of its authors shares the same name as a man arrested, instead of being killed, during the Roman campaign against the jews. Both of the leaders where caught together, one was killed outright, but the other was spared and sent back to Rome. Why? And why the interesting coincidence of names, not only with John, but the fact that the one killed was Simon? And then there is the bizarre coincidence of the chronological events in the campaign, which happened “while” the Bible was supposedly being written, exactly matching the places and events in the campaigns history… Did Josephus magically read the mind of John and the others, this “fitting” the campaign, whose times places and events are also recorded in Jewish histories the Romans had no control over? Somebody copied someone else, and since there is no Jewish history of Jesus *anywhere* that has ever been found, but the campaigns events *are* recorded with the exact places and similar events, one might be forced to conclude that the writters of the NT “copied” the campaigns somehow. Even the stuff being found, like the Gospel of Mary, dead end in their providence “decades” after the events are supposed to have happened. Short of some evidence of “contemporary” writtings that can be dated to his time, of which we have none, there is no proof any of it actually happened. Its the reverse problem of creationism. “Well, we can prove this stuff was written X years ago, so I believe it must have actually happened Y years prior to that!”, as apposed to, “Everyone says the universe began X years ago, but God could have just made it look that way Y years ago.” Yeah, and the original NT could have been written by intelligent terasaurs billions of years ago, for all the evidence we have that anything took place when claimed. While the guy that made the connections got some stuff wrong, I can’t completely discount the lack of proof of the original events, the unbelievable coincidences or the fact that the OT prediction of a coming messiah, at least in the original Jewish version, called for a “military” leader, not a peace maker, and certainly not one that was going to show up a half century before the Jewish nations would be swallowed up in a war campaign.
Either the old prophets where horrible at predictions, or something fishy went on back then.
How many of those “wacky scientists” in the military are 1) actually engineers and 2) Christians?
About moderate Christians taking on the fundamentalists…one of my favorite blogs hasn’t been mentioned yet. He’s a liberal evangelical, and one of his projects is deconstructing the twisted theology in the “Left Behind” books, one page at a time. This entry is especially good:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/12/lb_the_rise_of_.html
But as to the root of the problem…well, it’s easy to persuade ten million fundamentalists that they should be mortally offended by the phrase “Happy Holidays!” In fact, it’s easier to do that then to get three randomly-selected liberals to agree on what pizza toppings to get.
I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not sure that there is one.
“What percentage of “New Testament scholars” are 1) trained historians rather than theologians and 2) non-Christians?”
When I say “New Testament” scholars, I’m not referring to Bible College theologians.
Serious New Testament scholars are historians and often non-Christian. By serious I mean the people who are doing the real work in the field. There are some believing Christians, like John Meier (who is a priest), but even they fully acknowledge that the New Testament is mostly mythic inflation and only minimally reliable as a guide to the actual life of Jesus. The proponderance of important scholars, like John Crossan, Bart Ehrman, and Marcus Borg (to name a few), are not Christian at all.
PZ asked:
How many Spongs have you got?
And Francis responded:
Pretty much the entire Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) (at least if they are anything like the British set), and the entire Unitarian Universalist church.
I can’t speak for Quakers, but you’re flat wrong about Unitarian Universalists (“UUs”), Francis. I’m a UU and an atheist, and given our experience from last week I feel safe in assuming that you, Francis, wouldn’t mistake me for a lover of Christianity.
Well under half of Unitarian Universalists are Christians. Something like half of us (last time we counted) don’t believe in God.
More to the point, this exact debate–how should we (UUs and society at large) deal with Christianity, with its multiplicity of faces–has been playing out within UUism for decades. Nearly any perspective you could find on a Pharyngula comment thread (well, all but the fundy trolls) is well represented within Unitarian Universalism.
For example, I assure you that there are several thousand UU atheists who think that PZ is absolutely right–on this topic and most others. Plenty of “atheists who haven’t kicked the church habit” (old joke about UUs) think PZ is Da Bomb.
Kagehi,
Wow that went way over my head, I’m not sure what your getting at there! All I was saying was if you search for “commandments” you get Jesus endorsing them and Paul ignoring them. You can find lots of contradictions like that. So you can use the liberal Christians own bible against them, showing them that in fact if you want to be true to Christ’s supposed words, you should keep the jewish law.
Rieux — My favorite UU joke:
Q. What’s the difference between Dracula and a Unitarian?
A. One comes from Transylvania and avoids the sign of the cross, and the other is a fictional character created by Bram Stoker.
Skookum Planet
You wrote:
If the rest of us could get togther in 10,000 groups equivilant groups across America discussing strategy and the future, we’d end up with 10,000 conflicting plans. That is, after each group spent 2 years wrangling over everybody’s individual know-it-all plans inside the group. Perhaps this thread is a good example.
AAAAHHH…
Not. Because IF people really wanted to change things they would find three to five things- I think they are called memes right now- that they could agree upon. I believe the Republicans call it talking points and religious people call it doctrine. Not unlike Cindy Sheehan personalizing the war, saying it was bad, and then saying the same things over and over again until someone picks it up- and then continuing in that vein. Now whether or not it is possible or probable that the “left” could do this, for the reasons I posted above, is debatable.
You also wrote:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the theocratic study groups aren’t “discussing strategy and planning for the future”, they simply follow instructions and cheerlead for each other. Right?
Again no- or it depends. There are religious groups that were and are HEAVILY involved with the Reform Party in Canada, which is now the new Conservative government. These people devote hours to getting their candidate elected, and making him or her palatable to other churches who may believe differently about infant baptism, but agree that gay marriage is an abomination. They see their way of life changing, so rather than disagree theologically, they come together politically. There are sincere people in these groups, there are the followers, and then there are the users- people who go where the power is concentrated for their own gain. Not unlike anywhere else in life.
Are they following orders? Not really- Protestentism especially prides itself on being a “personal” relationship with Jesus, and there are divisions amongst Baptists and Pentecostals and other millenialists. There are definite divisions between Catholics and Protestants, but even Catholics are divided amongst themselves and don’t necessarily follow the edicts of their Pope. Their focus on the communal rather than the personal allows people to become lost in the crowd and not really have to toe the line sometimes. But on abortion, Terry Schiavo, gay rights, and family values, they agree—–which when said over and over and all together tends to get publicity.
What I said about fear is the most important thing to remember. There is great fear- fear of God being the most important, followed by fear of others making judgements that you are not ok, followed by fears of a way of life and a world view being damaged by the changes going on in the world. These people who say that perfect love casts out fear, are so afraid of anything that challenges them to think about things in a different way. I don’t know how much you know about the mega church in Colorado, but there was an excellent article last summer or spring in some magazine (Harpers!) about how the religious people were terrified of the city, and lived in the suburbs to be out of harms way. Follow these links…
http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html AND http://www.harpers.org/FeelingTheHate.html
(Apparently their Pastor talks to Bush once a week….)
It at least gives a birds eye view of how community and political values are formed in a religious vein.
I remember when I was a teen, fear ruled my life in regards to religion. I have three friends whom I keep in touch with since, and every one of them talks about how afraid we were. We were shown movies about the Rapture, that showed our fate if we were left behind- hence the new crop of books and movies about this hoped for event. My parents lived in fear of us kids being corrupted. We lived in a bubble- religious school all week, home on a farm during the weekend, and church on Sunday. Our social lives revolved around church. It honestly had its good points. You were a contributing part of something and somewhere bigger. If you lacked family- which is a very real consideration as to why church is so important in this mobile society- you had a built in extended family of sorts.
Their was a sense of security and safety in numbers. You had a reason to keep on track and do good things. Unfortunately you were also so sheltered that the world was pretty overwhelming when you got into it. There were few life skills taught, because if you were female it was generally understood that you would marry soon after you graduated- high school bible school or college- and then have a family. Try going to a real biology class after being taught the world was 6 thousand years old- LOL!!!
I won’t get into much of my expereience except to say that I married someone definitely outside the church. I did take my kids to church, again for that sense of community that is hard to foster in this day and age. I tried to believe, and now, later in life, I am tired of the stupidity that belief entails. I used to think it meant something- now I realize that morality is subjective. All I do is parallel the treatment of blacks 50 years ago to our treatment of gay people today, and I am sick. I think about the religious war we are in because there is a president that honestly believes he is doing God’s work, and I realize that the god I worshipped wasn’t one that wanted to go out and kick ass. ( I joined a church that was a lot less stressful than the religious school I went to). So lately I am pretty sure that religion is a man made construct with which one can wield power and authority. However heavily or benignly.
I am definitely open to more questions, but I do think if you read the above articles from Harpers, you will see what you are up against.
And now I am going to go look up my 19 year old essay I wrote on the Moral Majority- and see how prescient I was or wasn’t regarding its direction from the late eighties and on.
Fundie Christians against gays are correct in what the bible says, same for creationists.
Really? In which case, why is it only a very small number of verses in Leviticus that comment on this? Most of the laws in Leviticus (and there are a lot of them) were thrown out by the early Church – why cling to only those few?
As for the writings of Saul of Tarsus (which are not unequivocal anyway), Roman and Greek sexual relations were massively different from ours (except possibly at the lunatic fringe and under emperors like Heliogabolus) – even Julius Caesar was taunted for having had a gay relationship in his youth on the grounds that “Caesar conquered Gaul, but [I forget the name] conquered Caesar” on the grounds that he had been penetrated. Context matters. (As does the explicit mention at the front of an epistle as to the recipient (and yes, I can drive fundies mad by pointing out that their name is not Timothy)).
As for creationism, it is only supported if you take the bible literally rather than allegorically. In order to do that, you need to believe that God’s work filtered through human hands and brains is more important than God’s direct work (and how Natural Theology was reduced to a fringe movement, I do not know), and you need to remove the context in which the thing was written.
Same for thinking atheist’s and any member of any other religion may be damned. Most of the bible is vague at best but these areas it’s clear.
Hm… Perhaps you’ve missed a number of tensions in the bible. Such as comparing what Hosea and Ezra (never mind the Pentateuch) say to do with non-Israelites with the book of Ruth.
The Bible, by its nature, is a conservative document – it records tradition and events. On the other hand, it gets gradually more liberal as you go through (and as the surrounding environment has fewer customs like human sacrifice that need to be guarded against).
I can’t speak for Quakers, but you’re flat wrong about Unitarian Universalists (“UUs”), Francis. I’m a UU and an atheist, and given our experience from last week I feel safe in assuming that you, Francis, wouldn’t mistake me for a lover of Christianity.
My apologies for thinking that the ones I’ve met were representative.
The Bible, by its nature, is a conservative document – it records tradition and events.
I don’t think it (the OT) records events.
The article says that the study only goes up to 2001. If it’s the study I’m thinking of, it goes up to early 2001. I wonder how things have changed since Sep. 11, 2001.
And, of course, there are the usual problems of counting atheists: how many people are saying “atheist” to tweak their parents? How many people don’t believe in any gods, but call themselves “agnostic” because they’ve been brought up to believe that atheist == evil satanic terrorist commie? How many people think of themselves as Christian, but don’t actually do anything about it, like pray or go to church?