Punctum Saliens

What does it take to get to Heaven? According to many Christians, all you have to do is believe:

1. Jesus was the Son of God
2. Jesus was born of a virgin
3. Jesus was crucified for our sins
4. Jesus rose from the dead
5. Jesus will come to earth a second time

Sounds simple enough. But the entire thing depends on believing certain facts about a certain historical person. You can’t get by on believing in a god — or even in The God — alone. You must believe in Jesus and you must believe the above five things about Him.

May still sound simple to those of you reading this, but project yourself back to the year 1000 in what is now called Florida. Or to anywhere in Australia before the first Europeans arrived in the 1700′s. Or to certain parts of Africa or Asia today that are not “on the beaten path.” How could you possibly come up with all those facts about a person who lived long before you in a place you probably never dreamed existed? But if you didn’t believe, you were doomed to Hell. At least you’d have lots and lots of company — just think about how many billions of people throughout history have lived outside the “circle of influence,” that is, outside the regions where news of Jesus had spread.

But, surely, there’s a way around this, right? Surely, all these people are not damned for all eternity simply because they were born in the wrong place and at the wrong time? Surely it must be possible to intuit Jesus as the Son of God, intuit His virgin birth and death and resurrection, and intuit His second coming, right? No one really needs to hear all this from somebody else, does one?

Well, it just so happens that it is possible to come up with Jesus without hearing about Jesus from someone who heard about Jesus from someone who heard about Jesus … The ancient Greeks did it. They called him Dionysus instead of Jesus but Dionysus was born of a virgin, was the son of a god, was killed, and rose from the dead. Not bad, huh?

But is belief in Dionysus the same as belief in Jesus? Will belief in Dionysus get me into Heaven? My bet is that just about any Christian you talk to will have one of two answers: “Dion who?” or “No!” Let’s even assume, hypothetically if you must, that Dionysus is going to “come again” so that we have all of the fab five. The answer would still be “No!” Why? Because Dionysus was a pagan god. He wasn’t really God’s Son. He wasn’t Jesus.

But what’s in a name? “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” would it not? Don’t Jesus’ origins and actions make him Jesus? Is there really a sixth criterion — “Thou shalt call His name Jesus?” that we forgot to mention?

Aside from the obvious (i.e. “You have to believe in my ‘Jesus’ and not your ‘Jesus’ because if you believe in your ‘Jesus’ I don’t have as much control over what you believe and, therefore, over you”) I think the reason is that the five facts about Jesus are not the whole story. The whole story is the surrounding drama and historical context. Jesus was Jesus for a lot more reasons than the five listed above. He was Jesus because He was born in Bethlehem, was of the house of David, rode on a donkey, was betrayed, was crucified, and so on and so forth. Jesus was Jesus because He was the Jesus that was predicted in the Old Testament. And only the Jesus predicted in the Old Testament could be the True Jesus. In other words, you can’t just believe in Jesus. You’ve got to believe in The Jesus of My Bible and therefore you have to believe in My Bible and all that entails.

So, what does the Christian do with all those poor souls who are ending up in Hell? How does the Christian sleep at night knowing that right now, this very instant, probably thousands of people are dying without even hearing the name “Jesus”?

In other words … If You’re Gonna Send Billions of People to Hell, You Gotta … stayed tuned for more …

The program did what? Oh, that! That’s not a bug. I meant for your hard drive to be erased when you typed the sequence ctl-alt-cmd-tab-G-7. That’s a feature of the program.

For Christmas in 1981, my parents gave me The Ryrie Study Bible (which I still have). There is a Synopsis of Bible Doctrine written by C. C. Ryrie, himself. Under the section titled The Inspiration of the Bible is the following item:

Neither do we deny that there are problems in the text that we presently have. But problems are quite different from errors. Indeed, in the face of the claims that the Bible apparently makes for itself about inspiration and inerrancy, it would seem more reasonable when confronted with problems to place one’s faith in the Scriptures which have been proved to be true again and again than in any fallible human opinion. Man’s knowledge of these problems is limited and has in some instances been proved to be wrong. Time will undoubtedly continue to bring to light facts which will help solve the yet unsolved problems in the Bible. (Emphasis mine.)

So, the claim as follows:

1. This apparent error is not really an error but just a problem we can’t figure out because
2. the Bible doesn’t contain any errors because
3. the Bible is 100% true because
4. the Bible, itself, claims to be 100% true and because
5. the Bible doesn’t contain any errors

Or the condensed version: The Bible doesn’t contain any errors because the Bible doesn’t contain any errors.

Got that?

While doing a little research for another post I’m writing I came across Antisemitism and the Crucifixion of Christ: Who Murdered Jesus? and I just have to write this quicky. (Stay tuned … this site is going to be fodder for a lot of my posts.) Now I’ll admit that I haven’t read the entire page (because it’s rather long and it’s 1:43 in the morning and I just want to get something written so I can get some sleep) but here goes anyway …

I have one good thing to say about my Fundamentalist Christian upbringing: I never thought twice about who killed Jesus. I didn’t got even the slightest hint of antisemitism from my family, church, pastor, or teachers. We thought the Jews were going to Hell because they didn’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God but we didn’t hate them.

I honestly think that the first I heard of antisemitism because the Jews “murdered” Jesus was all the hoopla from Gibson’s film (which I saw and which brought tears to me eyes; but tears of laughter because of the far-too-many so-over-the-top dramatic falls of the Jesus character while lugging his cross through the streets).

Call me sheltered or stupid but I just don’t get it. I mean, isn’t His death the whole freakin’ point of Jesus coming to earth? If He (He being Jesus) didn’t die then good ol’ Gibson (and perhaps you, dear reader) wouldn’t be a “Christian” and would be stuck trying to find two young turtle doves as atonement for this coming Saturday at the temple instead of just being able to kneel at your bedside and say a few “Hail Mary’s” or “Our Father’s” or whatever. Jesus even said that He came to die. He had to die. That was the whole plan from the get go!

So, who cares who did what to whom? The only thing of any consequence is that Jesus did die which made possible the redemption of the entire human race.

I just don’t get it.

And I sincerely apologize for the gratuitous use of the bold tag.

“I happen to feel that the degree of a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic.”

Lisa Alther

I love this quote. It goes strongly against the black/white view so many people have on so many topics. Things are rarely as dichotomous or polarized as we think but due to many factors we just can’t seem to see that third or fourth dimension. Often we are presented with these other ideas, viewpoints, attitudes but they all get lumped into our “wrong” category without proper analysis. How often does it happen that someone holds an opinion that you think is totally wrong but if you really listen to their reasons for holding said opinion you can at least begin to “see things their way?” You may still not be able to reconcile both viewpoints and they may still be conflicting but at least you can “see” the other side. And conflicting viewpoints are ok — really! But don’t take my word for it …

A quote I found on Rant Fever (and several other places) from Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist:

Atheism comes from, literally, the Greek word a-, ‘the negative’; and theism, the word theos for ‘god’ — ‘negative God’ or ‘there is no God.’ It is affirming the non-existence of God. It affirms a negative. Anyone with an introductory course in philosophy recognizes that it is a logical contradiction. It would be like me saying to you, ‘There is no such thing as a white stone with black dots anywhere in all of the galaxies of this universe.’ The only way I can affirm that is if I have unlimited knowledge of this universe. So to affirm an absolute negative is self-defeating, because what you are saying is, ‘I have infinite knowledge in order to say to you, “There is nobody with infinite knowledge”.’ Atheism, as a system, is self-defeating.

The basic argument is: to prove that a white stone with black dots does not exist you would have to look at every single stone in the entire universe. However, to prove that a white stone with black dots does exist, you simply have to find a single white stone with black dots. Since the negative, the “a-stoneism” so to speak, is impossible (given a human’s limited knowledge and sub-light-speed travel ability) it is a logical contradiction, according to Zacharias.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Even though stones are a little different than gods or God the contradiction still seems to hold water in God’s case — saying that God does not exist is equivalent to saying that you definitely know that there is no God anywhere in the universe. But how can you know that if you’ve not been everywhere in the universe?

Ok, let’s ignore the logistical implications of looking for God the same way we look for stones and the philosophical implications of equating a physical object with a non-physical being … or spirit … or whatchamacallit. Instead let’s move to the other half of the argument. If it’s easier to prove a white stone with black dots does exist than it is to prove that it doesn’t then it should be easier to prove that God does exist than it is to prove that He doesn’t, right? I mean, come on. All you have to do is find one — I mean Him! (This will be left as an exercise for the interested reader.)

Now, I’ve heard Zacharias speak. Many years ago I even walked down the isle to re-dedicate my life to God during one of his sermons. (Or was it re-re-dedicate?) And I’ve read some of his books. So, I have a good idea where his arguments tend to end up.

In a nutshell, Zacharias is not a religous pluralist. That is, he believes that Christianity is the one and only true religion and that all other religions are false. He lumps atheism in with religion and so it lies under the “false” category. Fair enough. But Zacharias seems to stop short in his argument about atheism. In my opinion, he doesn’t take it far enough — doesn’t take it to its logical conclusion.

And the logical conclusion is that Zacharias’ argument actually supports religious pluralism! Think about it. If it is a logical contradiction to say that there is no God, then it’s also a logical contradiction to say that there is no God.

Did you notice what I did there? The first ‘God’ implicitly refers to the Christian God of the Bible. The second ‘God’ implicitly refers to Allah of Islam or to Shiva of Hinduism or to … Zacharias’ argument is not specific to his Christian God and so is applicable to the Gods of many religions.

I guess Zacharias is a religious pluralist after all!

Pretty sneaky, sis.

This is a follow-up to my recent post No Christian should have a bank account or an IRA.

I started thinking about this and doing a little research and with the help of my trusty HP 15C calculator (which I swear is running on the same batteries since 1982) I’ve figured out the solution to all the world’s problems. Well, at least the monetary, hunger, and poverty problems.

The solution is … drum roll, please …

Do what Jesus tells you to do!

Imagine my surprise at the simplicity of it all. I mean, Christians are supposed to follow Jesus’ teachings, right? I mean that’s pretty much what the whole religion is based on, right? So, if Christians would just do what they are supposed to be doing in the first place then the world would be so much better. You can’t get any simpler than that. No extra work on anyone’s part. You gotta hand it to ol’ Jesus Christ. For being an uneducated carpenter he had a lot of foresight.

So, while I’m waiting for the Nobel Peace Prize commission to review my application and cut my check I’ll let you in on the details of the solution. Now admittedly, the numbers are approximate and some of my figures are a few years old but I do have other things to do than solve the world’s problems to the 17th decimal place and, in any case, you’ll see that it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. So, here goes …

There are roughly 300 million people in the U.S. of which roughly 80% (or 240 million) are Christians. The average disposable income per capita in the U.S. is around $30,000. Now, the average disposable income is defined as “the income available to persons for spending or saving.” If you’re spending this disposable income it’s on things and according to Matthew 6:19 you are not supposed to do this:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal [Jesus Christ]

If you’re saving this disposable income it’s “for a rainy day” and according to Matthew 6:34 you are not supposed to do this either:

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself [Jesus Christ]

And this is the real key to my solution and what makes it so attractive. Christians can solve the world’s problems without selling everything they own or leaving their family to join a convent or shaving their heads and taking vows of celibacy or anything as unpleasant as that. All they have to do is stop buying things and stop saving for retirement. But, as Jesus said, you don’t need to do those things anyway because He will take care of you.

OK, you say. Nice thought but what’s the bottom line?

Here it is … if every Christian really lived by Jesus’ teachings then Christians (and I’m only talking the Christians in the United States) would have $7,000,000,000,000 to help the world. That’s 7 trillion dollars! That’s 7 trillion dollars a year!

What could we do with $7 trillion a year? Let’s see …

• The national debt is around $8.7 trillion so in one year and about 3 months the country would be out of debt.
• To sponsor a child through Plan USA costs $24/month or $288/year. For $7 trillion, Christians could sponsor 20 billion children every year which basically means they could sponsor every single child on earth with a whole lot left over!
• There would be enough left over, in fact, for Christians to foot the bill so the U.S. could abide by the Kyoto Protocol and finally do something about all the pollution we create.

That would be an awesome start. Don’t you agree? And it costs so little! I’ll even kick in half of my Nobel Peace Prize award to get things started. OK?

I’m starting a series of posts motivated by the book Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell (1957). I’ll tell you up front that I agree with some of what he says and disagree with some of what he says. I think some of his opinions are right on and others are ill-conceived, illogical, and totally ridiculous.

First from the Preface, written by Russell himself:

I think all the great religions of the world — Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism — both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true.

A classic argument. Interestingly enough, some Christians make the same claim and use it in their “proof” that Christianity is the only true religion. One oft used “proof” is the Blind Men and the Elephant analogy (also here). The claim is that everyone is totally wrong. Everyone, that is, except for the Christian citing the example and those in his camp who have the ability to somehow see the “real” truth. The problem is that he doesn’t place himself anywhere near the blind men or the elephant. He, apparently, has super powers that let him step out of the scenario, shed his blind fold, see the elephant as an elephant, and allow him to condemn all those poor, poor blind souls to hell for all of eternity. Sort of reminds me of Captain Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn when he admits to reprogramming the computers during the simulation test and, thereby, wins the unwinnable scenario. All too convenient, if you ask me.

Let me remind the gentle reader what we are discussing here. We are talking about God, Allah, Brahman, Atman, etc., etc., etc. We are talking about a being that creates entire universes by speaking. We are talking about a being that knows our innermost thoughts and feelings. We are talking about a being that is totally beyond our comprehension, our imagination. And yet one religion gets it right?

Let me use a contrived example to illustrate. You, me, and Bob are sitting around drinking some really, really good bourbon. Bob says, “I’m thinking of a number between 1 and a gazillion. Guess what it is.” You immediately shout out “42.” I immediately start screaming at you “You’re wrong! It’s not 42. How could it be 42? It’s 7427466391!” and begin flicking lit matches into your hair to simulate the eternal torment you will endure in hell because you are wrong.

That pretty much describes the situation. I can no more know what number Bob is really thinking of than can our elephant-seeing Christian really, truly, completely know God. And if he cannot really, truly, completely know God how can he say that someone else’s understanding of God is wrong?

Paul even backs me up in I Corinthians 13

9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

This is Paul talking. You know, St. Paul. The guy who spoke to Jesus — and Jesus spoke back! The guy who wrote a fair amount of the New Testament. He, St. Paul, said that “now I know in part.” Even St. Paul didn’t have all the answers; even he didn’t know what number Bob was thinking of. Is Zacharias really claiming that he knows more than St. Paul? If Paul only knew “in part,” then we, not having spoken with Jesus directly, can only know a fraction of an “in part” and that’s probably not a whole hell of a lot.

But what does this have to do with ol’ Bert? Russell seems to undervalue religion when he claims that conflicting religious ideas cannot both be right because he assumes that man can know god (in whatever form you want to picture god) completely enough that he is able to pass judgement on another idea of god. He also seems to overvalue man’s ability to “know”; if I don’t have the full picture and you don’t have the full picture then who’s to say that both our ideas are not two different aspects of the same, full picture?

For example, let’s assume that god is a cylinder and you and I, in our imperfect, limited, all-to-human knowledge can only see projections of god. I look at god and see a rectangle. You look at god from a different angle and see a circle. Are our two viewpoints necessarily mutually exclusive? Well, obviously not because god is neither a rectangle nor a circle — god is something beyond both our ideas.

In fact, the real answer is to combine our apparently-disjoint knowledge which would allow us all to refine our ideas of god. It’s like those SAT questions where you are given three projections of a three-dimensional object and have to pick the right shape. If you only have a single projection, there is no way you can get the right answer because you don’t see all the details of the object’s surface.

It seems to me that what we really need to do is take the most disparate religious ideas and try to fit them together for it is the disparity itself that tells us we are looking at very different parts of God or we are looking at God from very different angles. It also seems to me that the mystic religious traditions do exactly this. Mystic Christianity has a lot more in common with mystic Islam and mystic Judaism than the main-stream religions have in common with each other.

First of all, look at Matthew 6:

19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20. but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21. for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

These are words spoken by Jesus. So, Christians should not have bank accounts or stock portfolios or IRAs or money under the mattress for these are all “treasures upon earth.”

“But,” you say. “But what will we eat? What will we wear? How will we afford to live during retirement? How will we provide for our families?”

Well, Jesus addresses some of these very questions. Look a few verses later…

25. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26. Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29. and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32. (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Jesus’ answer to all our worries is “take no thought for the morrow!” I guess the original “Don’t worry; be happy.” He claims that if He takes care of the birds and the flowers and if you are so much more than the birds and the flowers that He will take care of you. Pretty radical, huh?

I mean, just imagine, having faith. Faith in an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God capable of creating the entire world by simply speaking! Why do we think we need to help out God by balancing our portfolios and working our asses off 50 and 60 hours a week to bring home the bacon? God says that He will take care of us. He knows that we need to eat and drink and have clothing (see verse 32) and He will provide.

This is directly from Jesus. He is telling us how to live our lives. Christians are supposed to be like Jesus and do what He tells us to do. Why do so many simply ignore Jesus’ direct words? I’ve heard pastors and teachers talk about these verses but they always talk about getting through “rough times”, there’s a “light at the end of the tunnel.” When you’re out of work, take heart. God will provide. But I don’t read it this way. Jesus is not talking about times “between jobs.” He’s talking everyday.

What’s more, the early church believed this and acted on it! Look at Acts 2:

44. And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45. and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

They seemed to really believe what Jesus said about riches in Matthew 19:21

If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

Jesus spoke these words to a young man who had kept all of God’s laws since he was a child. And don’t forget the camel and the eye of a needle comment Jesus makes.

Jesus was poor. His followers were poor. His early church sold possessions and land and gave the money freely to anyone who needed it. But so many in the church today, Christians of today, don’t seem to be listening to Jesus’ words anymore. They are worried about tomorrow and believing what Jesus said. They are basically calling Jesus a liar or not powerful enough to follow through on what He said.

That’s a pretty weak God they want the rest of the world to believe in.

On bartleby.com both God’s “The Bible” and Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” are listed under Nonfiction.

dictionary.com defines nonfiction as

“the branch of literature comprising works of narrative prose dealing with or offering opinions or conjectures upon facts and reality, including biography, history, and the essay”

But how can both books be based on facts and reality?
Hmmm…..

Actually, I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions while still in the womb. My first one — to be born on the Ides of March — failed miserably. My plan was to be born on such an inauspicious day that I would have no choice but be destined for greatness. May sound a little funny, but hey, my frontal lobe had not completely formed yet. I also didn’t realize that it’s not an easy task to be born six weeks early. Or was it five — I may have been a week late.

Anyway, after that I resolved to never make another resolution.

So why the title for this post? Just to get you to read it.