"A life lived in fear of death is the life, if you can call it that, of the living dead"

A memorable quote in an article worth considering.

At 86 I am aware that my life expectancy is less than that of a younger person. I want to keep learning, be with nature, keep contact with my family, write and generally live while I am still alive.

I cannot for the life of me (pun intended) see what Sellick's Christian mumbojumbo has to do with any of that. I am glad that Sellick recognises that personal immortality once a staple of Christianity is a myth. He may come to the realisation that there is no more encounter with Jesus than there is with Zeus or Apollo. If Jesus actually lived he is now dead as we all will be.

Let us live our lives and face death without the assistance of supernatural mumbojumbo.

The real man or woman learns to live by becoming willing and able to die.
Such a one is able to confront the difficult barriers and frustrations of this world and, yet, remain capable of ecstasy in every moment.

The primary initiation that leads to true human maturity is the confrontation with mortal fear.
Only when the ultimate frustration that is death has been fully considered and felt and understood as a lawful process can the individual live without self-protective and self-destructive fears.
Only in Intuitive freedom from the threat and fear of death is the apparent individual capable of constant love of the Living God, and also capable of transcending the frustrating and self-binding effects of daily experience.
Only in freedom from mortal recoil is the apparent individual capable of ecstasy under all conditions.

Therefore, be fully alive. But first learn right life by dealing with your death in this and every moment.
Become aware that you do not live, but that you are Lived by the Divine God
Become a devotee of the Living God by surrendering your illusion of independent life (which is the egoic self, or body-mind.
Become willing to die in any moment, and maintain no inward armor against it, including the naive childish and even infantile belief in Jesus.
Die in every moment, by not holding on to your life.

Only this ecstatic forgetting of self and Remembering of the Living God is the true way of life.
All other efforts are leading to death.
Life is only a desperate agitation, if you not forget your apparent separate self in Communion with the Living God
Human beings are all dying in this mood of separation.
Therefore, remember the One in Whom you are arising, until you are only Joy.
This is how to live, and this is also the secret of how to pass through death.
Death is the forgetting of self in the Living God.
Those who are only ego-possessed destroy themselves, by degrees, until death.
But those who constantly forget themselves in Communion with the Living God live in constant uncaused Joy.

The reality is that we all face a tragic ending, its just a question
when and how.

Working with nature as part of my profession, has given me an
acceptance of live and death as part of it all.

Its suffering that I have a problem with. For some its a quick
heart attack, or they die in their sleep. Not are all so fortunate.

I've followed a few cases, where people in palliative care, some
can't move at all, have been forced to endure ongoing suffering,
when their qaulity of life has gone and they'd simply like a choice
about their ending. Exit Switzerland has a wonderful set of
paramaters by which they can legally operate in Switzerland, to give
people with terminal diseases, such a choice.

In Australia the Catholic political lobby ensures that no such laws
can be introduced, cleverly playing politician against politician.

Sellick is an Anglican and seems more accepting of death. So my
question to him is, should people be forced to suffer against their
will, or should we give them a choice? What is the Anglican viewpoint on all this?

A great letter "Yabby" I agree with you 100%

Yabby,
The Anglican Church does not have a magisterium like the Church of Rome and hence does not have a party line on moral issues. My experience in hospice chaplaincy has been that pain during dying is almost always controlled even if that means that the doctors have to tread the fine line between a morphine dose that will eliminate pain and a dose that would inhibit respiration and hence kill. There is the danger that while attempting to eliminate suffering we eliminate the sufferer. Also the legal implications of assisted suicide are tortuous and it places a burden on the medical profession when there is an expectation that they can give a fatal dose. Frankly, I don't think its worth the candle.
Peter Sellick

Some would say a life well lived is one lived without regrets. But, we all will have regrets, and the only thing to do is to get over them and past them, in life - while we have the chance.

There is a trick of course - to recognize those things we can do nothing about. There is little point in railing against the light, as there is also in railing against the dark - the ultimate dark.

We are what we are, and will be judged by what we leave behind, our legacy, good or bad, lasting or fleeting, memorable or infamous - in whatever large or small measure.

To trust in God is a cop-out, a cop-out from taking direct responsibility for this life, for what we can and cannot do to leave the world as good, or better, than we found it - the ultimate failure being to leave repair and restoration to others - and the ultimate self-deceit is to pursue ego, to raise a large family in spite of the destructive addition this would make to a struggling planet. But, we are the masters of rationalization and blame-shifting, of mind over matter - I don't mind, and you don't matter.

The problem with euthanasia is that a willingness to suicide is akin to a willingness to murder - but then history shows that humans do have an acceptance of both. The trick may be to do what we need to, have affairs in order, and then just let nature take its course - but, so many worry most about depleting their financial legacy by lingering too long, or worst of all by extravagance on 'questionable' therapies. This is a world driven by finance after all - at the expense of virtue - and of relegating care for the dying to others.

A good life is tolerant, understanding and thoughtful, of all, rather than of self. Jesus tried, and regretted leaving much undone, much for others. To see Him one will have to honour His teachings in this life - believe it, or not.

Anyone who thinks he or she will escape judgement by their Creator and a Holy God is a fool. Sellick of all people should know that Jesus Christ took sin upon Himself so that wretches could receive eternal life. If he fails to acknowledge that truth he should not bear the name Christian. The power of the grave has been defeated by the One who could not be held by it. The thousands who have willingly gone to the grave holding this truth are not mocked by unbelieving theologians who have not a clue.

*and it places a burden on the medical profession when there is an expectation that they can give a fatal dose. Frankly, I don't think its worth the candle*

Not really Sells, for the devil is in the details and it is for very
good reasons that I specifically referred to the Swiss laws and the
Exit Switzerland system. In that system, the doctor is consulted,
but is not involved in the final decision of the patient to take their
own life.

To me all this is about being able to understand another's perspective,
which we are commonly not very good at and its about compassion, which
many Christians claim to have.

There are patients who fall through the cracks. Patients for instance,
where an active mind is trapped in what is virtually a dead body.
Think of the Rossiter case in Perth and a number of others. Personally
I have huge empathy with these people. They will spend their time
until death, staring at the ceiling, unable to move a muscle.
Our laws gave Mr Rossiter one choice, starve to death. Luckily he
was eventually taken by pneumonia, to relieve him of his misery.

I've seen people die of cancer over a long period. When its getting
to stage 3 and 4, some have simply had enough. Why torture them
against their will? IMHO that is hardly compassionate and if I was
in those sorts of positions, I would want a choice about my life.

Salpetre, if nature takes its course means huge suffering from
the perspective of the sufferer, why should they not have a choice
about their own life? Unless of course you think that suicide should
be illegal and it is not. Most of these patients are simply in a
position where they can no longer help themselves

Dear runner,

You are entitled to believe in any superstition you wish. You can also think that other people should share your superstition. However, there is no reason that other people have to share your gullibility.

The power of the grave is absolute. Death is final no matter what superstition one holds.

It is the end, and that's that. Live while you are alive, be kind and question.

Sorry, Peter, I must have missed something. Explain to me again how the execution of a carpenter 2000 years ago has any bearing whatsoever on whether I can die happy or not.

"Death has lost its dominion over us."

According to the Bureau of Statistics there were 143,500 deaths registered in Australia in 2010. That's an awful lot of people who didn't get your memo.

Davidf

You are entitled to choose unbelief should you wish. You can also think that other people should share your unbelief. However, there is no reason that other people have to share your gullibility.

Dear runner,

I am not an unbeliever. I believe one should be kind and question authority. I believe we have only this life to live. I believe that the scientific method is a good way to find out about what goes on in the world. I believe many things.

I just don't choose to be believe in superstition.

Perhaps we who are Atheists are not controlled by the dogma of religion,Heaven if you are good, Hell if you are bad, I personally do not fear death as some of my religious friends do.
Perhaps one must first look at our beginning, it is by a fluke of nature that we all make it here,no God or Fairy involved,I could have just as easily hit my head at the tip of a condom and gone nowhere, or perhaps washed down the drain with a shower, this would mean I would not be here, would I have missed anything if this was the case,I don't think so, because I knew nothing before an act of intercourse taking place, and me being a good swimmer,nothing to do with any super being, my belief is that after my death the exact same scenario will take place, I will not be here anymore, I will miss nobody, I will not join my family in any way, they have not missed me, because their death meant the same as I believe, nothingness,they no longer know that I exist, one will return to the elements at first and then for billions of years become someone who really did not exist at all, there will be no house of many rooms as so many believe.
I like "Yabby" am very concerned that my ending will not be the ending I want owing to Religious crap, I want compassion when I have lost dignity and my body is wracked in unbearable pain, that would mean an early exit of my choosing and not being left to the ravages of Morphine induced death at a later date in a Hospice.
My life and death belongs to me, and me only.

Most posts seem to miss Peter's main point, that dying from an illness need not be seen as a "battle". Peter, however, seems a little narrow in explaining how one can transform dying from a battle to something more meaningful. He believes it only occurs through some sort of arrangement with Christ (who another poster described as some carpenter who died 2000 years ago - I got a good laugh from that).
No Peter, there are many approaches to confronting your mortality in a soul-expanding way that may not involve any carpenters. And by the way, some of the natural healing approaches to trying to recover from cancer can possibly make the amount of time you have left be better, as well as increasing the chances of a remarkable recovery. Meditation for example - there is some evidence that it can assist people with serious illnesses to recover - but also it could greatly enhance the remaining 6 months, 12 months, or whatever you have. All in all a most interesting article, even if it got a little weird when Christ entered the picture.

Peter. a fine and timely article. The key to your proposition is not a belief in Christ and membership of his Church but the "encounter" with him. This is terminology used a lot lately by Pope Benedict XVI and is popping up in various Catholic Scripture reflections including the recent Lenten home based programmes.
The encounter is certainly a step beyond pew sitting or prayer saying. It can be a small, very deliberate, step but a giant leap as it takes us into the domain of relationship that itself is nourished by prayerful meditation and contemplation. Therein is the peace and joy of living life to the full with death becoming just a final event in the whole of life. No big deal.
The only condemnation that may confront us is by future generations of us as an entire generation or two who became hooked on "if it feels good do it" as self autonomous individuals who lived life freely but so irresponsibly with consumerism becoming both the image and the form of worship to the new god

*Therein is the peace and joy of living life to the full with death becoming just a final event in the whole of life*

Sheesh, people like me figured that out a long time ago and have
lived accordingly. Where I have a problem is when people like the
pope do their contemplating, they have no problem when their dogma
lands up torturing old and sick people against their will and use
the mega billions of the Vatican for lobbying politicians to enforce
the presently contemplated dogma on the rest of us.

Luckily the Anglicans don't seem quite as fanatical.

Yabby. I am not sure what universe you are dwelling in. But it seems there is no peace and joy there. That hackneyed stuff contributes nothing to the discussion.
You have one life and if you forgo the "encounter" it is a life less lived. Unlike wealth, good health or power or self autonomy, you cannot build it for yourself. It is a gift on offer, uniquely to you.
Cheers

*You have one life and if you forgo the "encounter" it is a life less lived*

Boxgum, with all due respect, that is simply your limited perspective
of the world. You could perhaps never unstand my perspective of
what living life to the full, living a happy and joyful life or
what I make the purpose of my life.

The natural world is in fact full of wonder, beauty and fascination
to me and personally I don't need the wonder about the supernatural
to experience your "encounter".

The rest of my post was really about the hypocracy of some of
the religious, whom I have a bone to pick with. Personally I'd like
to see a world with a little less suffering and pointing that out
is not unreasonable

Sorry Peter but for those of us raised free of indoctrination your Christ looks like just another deity idol.
Christians are atheists with *one* exception...the one they were force fed before they could grow up.
There were thousands of years of just religion...it took science just 200 years to raise us from the animal state and give us a chance to evolve further. Religion has nothing to say about death because it can only work with the "faith" axioms it starts with...nothing new that is true can come from arbitrary story telling!
Seriously, I could replace Christ with my cat and it would add or reduce nothing from the "argument" presented.

>>Seriously, I could replace Christ with my cat and it would add or reduce nothing from the "argument" presented.<<

Yes, that certainly explains your "argument" (and understanding of other people's points of view).

This article made me think of my mother who died of cancer a couple of years ago. After an operation to remove a tumour and some radiotherapy my mum opted not to undergo chemotherapy.

At first I was surprised thinking from my own POV that one would do anything to prolong life. But in talking more intimately my mother's desire was to make the best of what time she had left, especially as the effects of chemo are harsh and there was only a poor prognosis.

Coming to peace with death and spending time with loved ones is what counts for many people. This is not to diminish those who choose to go into 'battle' as described. It is such a personal choice.

The greatest sadness, and it still fills me with tears to think about it, was how quick it was at the end, but also how awful watching someone close to you go through the process of cancer. And it is a process. When cancer has spread to the brain and they are no longer able to express themselves, and are kept under a permanent morphine induced state.

I don't think it is for any of us to cast judgement on these personal choices, only that each of us choose what is right for us. In my experience doctors do not force any conventional path, only provide options and let the patient decide with as much information as possible. Much of the rhetoric around cancer is just that, a media obsessed with sensationalism and feel good stories that usually provide little depth or analysis.

The closer death comes the less it's fearful.

Once you've faced death, fear of death and fearing the risk of death recedes. Living life is the result.

This is a personal conclusion.

I faced death in the form of a stage 3 bowel cancer. I battled for life. I wanted to fulfil those things I'd always thought I should have done.

During the 2 years of chemo, radiation, operation, weight loss, from 105kgs to 60 kgs, the very very slow recovery and the many times I and others expected my death, I studied sailing.

Since 14 I had dreamed of sailing on an ocean.

We bought a yacht in Port Stephens. I sailed it to Brisbane ... solo. I'd never set foot on a small boat before. I've faced death again and again, revelled in that, survived and had epiphanies.

There's a God. It's spirit is within us.

The universe can squash us in an instant. There is no such thing as security and all we do is create relationships, homes and buy things that give us an illusion of security. That's reflected in our society with the current over emphasis on risk aversion.

We meet our God when we stretch our boundaries and challenge death.

One day I'll go to my God and I am sure it will be as I am stretching my boundaries.

If I don't, and I die in the safety of others illusions then I'll die in the hell of knowing I'm not testing myself and meeting my God and it's majesty ... which I believe I've honoured with my endeavours.

It would be a living hell if I was to die without learning this fact. My life would be empty and my death something to be feared and avoided

I'm not religious and have no belief in the self-destroying atheism or risk-aversion.

My next challenge is to circumnavigate ... solo. I'm nearly 60. I'll be cleared of cancer in May ... the 5 year point.

I'm not battling, I'm revelling in life and death.

Dear imajulianutter,

You are an inspiration to all.

I am sure everyone's thoughts and sincerest wishes for the very best of outcome is with you.

May you live free from cancer, and in very good health for many, many more years to come.

And may you achieve, which I believe you will, all the sailing challenges to which you commit yourself now and in the future.

imajulianutter,

That was a great post.

I wish you well.

"While a recent series of experiments suggests that reminders of death do indeed make nonreligious people more consciously skeptical about religion and, at the same time, also more unconsciously receptive to religious beliefs, there is no certain explanation for why this might be so." (http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2012/04/04/why-would-reminders-of-death-make-nonreligious-people-more-hostile-to-religion-and-more-open-to-supernatural-beliefs/)

Dear George,

We can express our feelings about death in language. Other species can observe their fellow creatures not moving any more and may be well aware that they will never move again. Although they do not have language they may somehow know it will happen to them. I don't think we can find out how they feel about it. I cannot find how you feel about it. You can tell me your words, but I cannot feel your feelings.

To me religion, among other things, is a way of not dealing with death. We can feel we have a future when we don't have a future beyond our death. It is final.

Dear david f,

I have posted the link to that article claiming some “evidence” (nowadays a much misused term) because I just thought it might be of interest to some of those who posted in this thread. The valility or credibility of this “evidence” I, of course, cannot appraise myself.

I certainly agree - and so would, I guess, most of us, “religious” or not - with your first paragraph.

>>religion, among other things, is a way of not dealing with death <<

I am not sure those who appreciate e.g. “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, (whose actual title is "The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State”), would see it that way - unless you do not count Buddhism among religions.

>>We can feel we have a future when we don't have a future beyond our death. It is final.<<

I again agree that many people can feel thus, which does not exclude the possibility of other people feeling differently about their existence beyond the material: If a lightning hit this computer before I could email this post, my thoughts expressed in it would be lost, gone forever. It would be final. However, if I manage to send it off via internet before the lightning strikes, its “body” will be destroyed but my thoughts will be “resurrected” on a different body (e.g. your computer, that I know absolutely nothing about), and my thoughts will continue to live there.

Please excuse me if this metaphor did not convey anything on how I, and other believers, might think about these matters. It is certainly not an evidence or anything. Mostly it could provide an illustration of the rational part (explanation?) of some religious people’s approach to death. Of course, there are also the cultural (how you were educated etc) and emotional parts or dimensions, probably both more important.

I agree that for some religion is the cowards way out in the face of death. There are many scriptural passages that seem to promise immortality to the believer. This sets up a bargain between God and the believer, you believe in me and I will receive you in heaven to live in eternal joy. However, a closer inspection does not bear this interpretation out despite the millions through history that have believed it to be so. I cannot identify with this attitude, I came to the faith from militant atheism not because I believed it would save me from death or that I was convinced that God existed but because I encountered a beauty that was overwhelming. It had nothing to do with the fear of death although its event made the idea of death less oppressive. Death has a different significance when one is groping in the dark, it feels actually present. But in the light of Christ, although very important, it does not seem as awful.

Peter Sellick

davidf... you engage in further put down of people of faith as if they cannot engage in life faced with the reality of death.

Christians live with death. Its founder subjected himself to personal abuse, ridicule, mocking of his person and eventually the violence of the scourge and the cross. Christians are called to always live in the shadow of the cross in their life discernment that seeks truth in all actions.

I do not know what cognitive gifts animals have of death. I do know they have no heroes or martyrs from whom to draw inspiration as we humans do.

Jesus came for us to have life to the full. From his other teachings we know such fullness is about love and relationship with his Father and our neighbour and the call to service to "the other". To worship God in communion with others ( the Church) and to live the Gospels with others ( the people of God) for self and others is the full expression of Christian humanism. It really is all about us. Jesus simply, but painfully and patiently, provides the path for the wholistic human endeavour.

In a way, death is indeed final. Once met we no longer have the chance to respond to the encounter with the Risen Lord - the mystery of the Resurrection is that each generation can experience the Lord's presence. I do not really understand the day of judgement and heaven and hell - our choices are our own judgement : it may be either bliss or a sense of non completion. Just a thought.

Yet death is not final in the sense of human endeavour for the good, the true and the beautiful. Whatever one has contributed in good faith for these finds its way into the human project of bringing this world to a state wherein God's love expressed through the Scriptures and acted out in the Gospels is known by all.
So for a faithful Christian, death should be a resting place from a full life lived well

Dear George,

I am aware that other people feel differently. That is why I prefixed my second paragraph with the words, 'to me.'

I see the main problem with death is dealing with the death of others. We all will be successful in our own deaths. We need no rehearsals.

A cousin of mine recently died. He was about ten years younger than I am. He had Parkinson's and was incoherent for some time before his end. He had several degrees and lived the life of a recluse. When I last saw him his apartment had piles of old Wall Street Journals and other periodicals. His younger brother who has PhDs in jurisprudence and pharmacology is deep in the grip of Alzheimer's. His wife says that he responds to music and not much else.

I have no health problems besides allergies which are a minor irritant, go to the pool six mornings a week and was out the previous two Saturdays hunting fungi with the Queensland Mycological Society. Friends and relatives are sick and dying, and I wonder what I am still doing here.

Recently I have been enjoying the beautiful poems on death written by Swinburne, Dickinson, Keats, Donne, Christina Rossetti and others.

Dear boxgum,

You wrote: “Christians live with death” That is true for many Christians. I wonder at the Christian preoccupation with death. It is something that will happen to us all. However, while we are alive why not celebrate our life rather than live with death? It seems a rather morbid preoccupation to me to live with death. I would rather live with life than death. Living with death seems to me to trivialise life and make it a mere preoccupation while we are preparing for what is really important to some Christians, death.

You also wrote: “in a way, death is indeed final.”

That sounds like a denial to me. Death is final in all ways.

You wrote: “I do not really understand the day of judgement and heaven and hell.” What is to understand? They are human inventions so humans can interpret them any way they want to.

You wrote: “So for a faithful Christian, death should be a resting place from a full life lived well.”

I agree with part of your sentence. Death should be a resting place from a full life lived well.” That should be true for anyone not just Christians. At the moment I am saddened by the death of a cousin who I don’t think lived a full life.

Your sense of community in joining with others in church sounds like a good thing. May you enjoy the fellowship proceeding from that. I am sure that occasionally you don’t live with death but enjoy life. We humans are tribal creatures. In our fragmented modern existence we may belong to no tribe or belong to many. Your fellowship with other Christians satisfies some of the demands of tribalism.

I will enjoy the fellowship at the Global Atheistic Convention, my fellowship with the Queensland Mycological Society and my fellowship with you as a fellow contributor to the discussion on this thread.

I hope we will have further dialog.

Dear david f,

>>I am aware that other people feel differently. That is why I prefixed my second paragraph with the words, 'to me.'<<

I was aware you were aware, I just was not sure others were, due to the many sweeping statements and judgements on this and similar threads (about other people’s beliefs or feelings), that do not come with such a prefix.

Thank you for the personal account of your cousin’s death. I agree that dealing with other people’s death can be a problem. Once an atheist friend of mine, knowing that I was “religious”, asked me to console her Asian friend who was dying of cancer. She was a Buddhist. So I explained to her that although I have some ideas about existence that goes beyond the material, they are culturally grounded and different from how a Buddhist would see them. (As I would say today, Christians and Buddhist - more precisely those of them who believe in “spirits” etc - use different models of the Ultimate Reality that lies beyond the reach of science). I suggested she called a Buddhist monk, which she did, and the monk apparently did a job that I - or any Christian - would not have been able to do in that position.

Similarly, when asked by a priest to write an apologetic essay, I used the fact that he knew I was a mathematician, and replied something like: “All I could tell a non-Christian is: I know my life-equations admit other than trivial (materialist) solutions. Your equations are not my equations but maybe they also admit other than trivial world-view solutions. And maybe also in your case those non-trivial solutions are the ones that matter”.

Hello again davidf

You have misinterpreted my comments in concluding that death is a preoccupation to Christians, and so myself. My explicit position is that we face death as a reality of life and one to be met as a completion, into the presence of God. You as an athiest, I understand, face death as a reality of life and being a finality into oblivion. Whatever the outcome, you and I have no power over it. As Sells says, there is no battle to win, as there is no war. It can only influence us here and now on earth, in life.

Concerning social groupings. Aristotle wrote of us humans as social beings. Social groups, athiests or believers or whatever, are not necessarily tribal, unless one is on the low scale of reflexivity. My social groups extend well beyond the Church grounds. The good life rests in relationships. As a Christian my relationship with God, through the Risen Lord and power of the Holy Spirit, is paramount. From this all other relationships are strengthened in love in their making, sustaining and breaking where necessary.

History is made of bold actions. A whole new history unfolded with a man who resolutely took to the road to Jerusalem some 2000 years ago, knowing what was likely to happen to him. Since that time Christians know that they have company if and when they may discern to take their own resolute walk to Jerusalem as their life unfolds in the service of others.

A Good Friday reflection.

Dear boxgum,

You wrote: “Christians live with death.” That certainly sounded like death was a preoccupation of Christians.

I was not making a hierarchy of social groupings. My definition of tribalism is merely the desire of human beings to associate with other human beings with whom they share an outlook, religion, occupation, ethnicity, language or some other aspect of life. It seems a natural part of the human condition.

You are a believer in Christianity. I am not nor am I a believer in any other religion. I believe religions have a finite life. At one time Manichaeism extended from Spain to China. It lasted from the third to the eighteenth century which is longer than Islam has been on earth and almost as long as Christianity. I believe that at some time in the future Christianity will go the way of Manichaeism and the pantheon of gods of the Classical world. As far as I know nobody worships Zeus or Jupiter any more. The classical religions are of interest only to antiquarians although the legends accompanying those religions are still preserved in prose and poetry.

Religions may have a long life. Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism all predate Christianity. I believe that, at some time in the future, Christianity and all other current religions will go the way of Manichaeism and the classical pantheon. The Bible will be regarded as a book of legends, and Jesus will take his place among many other legendary figures of humanity’s past.

I don’t believe that humanity will be without religion. As Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity have been invented by humans future humans will probably invent other religions.

Dear George,

I share your objection to casually lumping all religious beliefs together in one inchoate mass. I believe the locution, Judeo-Christian, came into prominence as a result of the Cold War when the ‘Judeo-Christian’ United States opposed ‘Godless’ communism. At that time ‘under God’ was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and the US motto became ‘In God we trust’ as opposed to the former motto, E Pluribus Unum (one out of many). If we reflect on it Christianity centres around Jesus, his life and his teachings whereas he has no place in Judaism even though many of his teachings come from Judaism. The term is an oxymoron. If we define religion as incorporating a belief in God we eliminate Buddhism and other non-theistic religions from consideration as religions. However, we do not have make an ironclad definition of religion to discuss it.

The imposition of a religion on those of another belief can cause new insights. After the reconquest of Spain by Christian armies Catholicism was imposed on Muslims and Jews. When the pressure was relieved most people either went back to their original faith or stayed Catholic.

However, some of their descendents broke new ground. They could no longer accept without question the precepts of either faith. Two of their descendents are Montaigne, a Catholic, and Spinoza, a Jew. I think their reflections could be a direct result of their ancestry. At present I am looking into the works of both with a view to writing on them including a speculation on the influences that the two religions had on them and their worldview.

Dear david f,

I am not sure how is this related to what I wrote but thanks for the perspective:

When looking at history, there are facts and there are perspectives. If you claim something to be a fact you are either right or wrong (or do not express yourself clearly). However, different perspectives can coexist, can complement, enrich each other. In this sense I appreciate your historical perspectives, in spite of the ridiculing, even derogative, language you sometimes -albeit not in this post - use to describe those who are not atheists. Nevertheless, I always appreciate your insights.

I think the locution Judeo-Christian is more related to Christians reflecting on their initial underestimation of the evil of Hitler’s treatment of Jews. There are also reasons independent of this: speaking of West’s ethics based on Christianity only, was seen as speaking - in various contexts - of men only. Hence a more explicit “men and women” and “Judeo-Christian” (ethics, heritage, roots, etc. - NOT religion).

There are perhaps hundreds of definitions of religion, but very roughly religion can be characterised either by

1. a belief in the Supernatural or
2. communally shared beliefs which act to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in people, c.f. Geertz’s (anthropological) definition (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7816#124645).

Abrahamic religions, as well as some (not all) versions of Buddhism are religions in both the meanings of the word, deism is perhaps a religion only in the first and e.g. marx-leninism only in the second meaning of the word. No atheist could be called religious in the first meaning of the word, though some (again not all) atheists might be called religious (in some version of) the second meaning of the word.

I do not know much about Montaigne, but Spinoza, the grandfather, among other things, of panentheism, is clearly an indispensable part of our cultural heritage.

Dear George,

Language may be objectively derogatory although who is to establish what is objectively derogatory?

Let us take the word, unbeliever. Those of a particular religion may call those who do not share their religious beliefs, unbelievers. They commonly call atheists unbelievers implicitly restricting the meaning of belief to religious beliefs. Atheists may believe that democracy is the best political system. It is a belief rather than a fact since I don’t believe that there are any objective criteria by which we can establish whether democracy is the best political system or even make an ironclad definition of democracy.

I find it objectionable to be referred to as an unbeliever. I prefer the explicit recognition that having different beliefs does not make one an unbeliever. I believe there is no God. Since there is no evidence that there is a God or any acceptable proof that there is one it seems to me reasonable to believe that there is no God. I think it derogatory to call an atheist an unbeliever if one assumes that belief is a good thing.

However, I do not think belief is a good thing in itself. I think it is a necessary thing since we have to get on with our lives and it is wasteful thing to speculate on the legitimacy of all of our beliefs.

You may be correct in your account of the origin of the word, Judeo-Christian, as referring to a belated recognition of the evil of Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. If your account is correct it makes the locution even more wrong.

Hitler as an individual did very little to mistreat the Jews. It was the many who followed him who carried out his wishes. The ground had been made fertile for such treatment by the many years of Catholic and Protestant hatred for Jews. Most of those who carried out the Nazi program were Christian. Zahn, a Catholic, and Bultmann, a Protestant have written about the German churches connection with Hitler. The locution, Judeo-Christian, lumps victims and perpetrators together.

Dear david f,

>>who is to establish what is objectively derogatory?<<

I agree that the term depends on the social context or convention, and is closely related to what is offensive language. Instead of giving a long list of examples, let me just repeat that calling other people’s world-views immoral or irrational (or related terms), without understanding the meaning of terms (often symbols) used, stops any fruitful exchange of opinions. Therefore though I follow some threads here - e.g. about the Atheist Convention - I do not see any point in participating in them, and am glad I found this corner where, as in the past, I can get a reasonable exchange of opinions with you.

I am glad you accept that everybody has to believe something. Not only in mathematics, every rational system, including those underlying a world-view, has to be built on some undefined terms and accept some a priori presuppositions, axioms in mathematics.

Until recently, the terms “God”, and for non-philosophers also “existence”, were such generally understood but undefined terms in our western context. And “God exists” or “God does not exist” were two basic, mutually exclusive, world-view presuppositions. This, in spite of the fact that many tried to “prove” the existence of God using some other undefined terms, or disprove it by reference to some self-referential paradoxes.

That was not a simple situation then, and today the reasons - mostly personal and cultural - for starting from this or that initial world-view presupposition are even more blurry, also, but not only, because of the ambiguity of the terms involved. Therefore I prefer to start from Carl Sagan’s belief as the default position even if it is not mine (c.f. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9389&page=0#150883). -- ctd

ctd.
The term unbeliever is standard and many atheists accept it as referring to their world-view. I entered these OLO discussions some years ago to find out about the positions of a variety of atheists (as I knew that not all Christians were as naive as runner, I also knew that not all atheists were as philosophically naive as my marx-leninist teachers or some debaters on this OLO). I learned that many atheists objected to being referred to as believing that God did not exist, instead they preferred to describe their world view as “lack (or absence) of belief, full stop” (see e.g.http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2171#46468). So it would seem natural to call such position as that of an unbeliever, although I still do not understand exactly what the “lack of belief” is supposed to mean. Your “I believe there is no God” is much clearer.

>> Most of those who carried out the Nazi program were Christian<<
Similarly e.g. most of those who were bald were Christian for the simple fact that the vast majority of Germans (Europeans) at that time were baptised. However, you are right if you mean that nazism could arise only in a West with its Christian cultural roots, rather than e.g. in China or other civilisation. Victor Frankl wrote:

“After all, man is that being who has invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who has entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips”

Probably he should have written “western man” instead of just “man”. And it is the “western man” who invented also Marx-Leninism and Stalinism but also gave rise to an Einstein, Mozart and Kant.

I did not offer an account of the origin of the term Judeo-Christian in relation to nazism, I only tried to explain why its use has become more frequent after WWII. The origins of the term date back to 1829, and, as I wrote before, are used mainly in an ethical context (c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Christian)

Dear George,

I used to use the locution that atheism is not a belief. Upon reflection I have abandoned that usage and now say that atheism is a belief that there is no God. Atheists do not like to be compared to religious believers, but in some instances there are valid comparisons. It would be intellectually dishonest to deny it where it exists, and I think neither of us wants to be intellectually dishonest.

Some atheists are as naïve as runner. They may think of religious believers in theological terms as embodiments of evil. At one time I resigned from the Humanist Society of Queensland. One of the members approved of the Chinese persecution of Christians. I resigned when it was evident that most members of HSQ agreed with him. I have rejoined since that element is no longer part of the group. Our current president is a former Catholic who will freely admit the good things the church has done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Castellio tells of Castellio, a Christian exceptional in his time. He protested the burning at the stake of Servetus in Calvin’s Geneva. “To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.” —Sebastian Castellio, Contra libellum, # 77, Vaticanus. At that time that thought was derided by most ecclesiastics of all persuasions.

We agree that any logical system has to start with axioms in which there are undefined terms. Point and line are abstract entities that can be interchanged and the theorems coming from the axioms are still valid. Can God be something like that - an entity which cannot be defined but upon which one bases a logical system?

I do not mean that Nazism could only have arisen in the west. I mean that the anti-Semitism which was a part of Nazism, but not all of it, is primarily a product of Christianity. Many Christians simply do not recognise that. The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, a Lutheran group, is one of the Christian groups that recognise that. http://www.kanaan.org/international/israel/israel1.htm on their website contains a recognition of that.

continued

continued

It seems to me that Hitler was not an aberration but an embodiment of trends implicit in both Germanic culture and Christianity. One can now point to Hitler as evil although many in his time did not think of him as evil. I think many in this world are as evil, but the evil of many people does little or no harm if no one follows them. No mass movement whether it is religious, political, economic or social becomes a mass movement unless it appeals to the masses. That is an obvious truism which apparently is not obvious to many.

I find examining the reason why Hitler and the Nazis were so attractive to many Germans is a more interesting question than what made Hitler what he was. Georg Mosse’s “The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich” deals with that question. On the cover of the book is a reproduction of a painting of Hiler showing him as a knight in shining armour. To look at what happened we have to realise that is how many Germans regarded Hitler. Hitler and Nazis brought together many ideas which existed several generations before the Nazi period. Racial thought, Germanic Christianity, nature mysticism, sun worship and theosophy were some of those ideas.

Judeo-Christian according to the Wikipedia reference has an interesting history. It is now used as part of the current culture wars in the US. Although we are now discussing the term I usually try to avoid using it

and of course no mention that the religion of Darwinism had much more influence over the Nazis than Christianity. That fact that destroys much of the god deniers dogmas. Don't let facts detroy your doctrine guys.

Dear david f,

As for Castellio, see also our earlier discussion in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10725#178210 and the sequel.

Thank you for your perspective (c.f. my previous post about the coexistence of different perspectives) on Nazism and Christianity, that you already presented in the past. Certainly both Nazism/Holocaust and Christianity appeared within the same western (and no other) civilisation, the same as Christianity and Enlightenment, Christianity and scientific/technological progress, etc. I am not a historian but it is sometimes difficult - and indeed dependent on your initial perspective - to decide to what extent there was a correlation, or even causal relation, “a product of”.

As to “why Hitler and the Nazis were so attractive to many Germans”, this is more or less the sad question also German historians and philosophers tried to answer in the, now famous Historikenstreit of the 1980s (c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historikerstreit).

>>Can God be something like that - an entity which cannot be defined but upon which one bases a logical system?<<

Let me try to better explain my position. You can define a term only by using other terms already defined - or needing to be defined as well - but eventually you will have to use terms that are basic, undefined or even undefinable. In mathematics there are only a few such basic terms, (e.g. sets). A world-view (more precisely the rational frame of a consistent world-view) is a non-formal system, the basic terms are not that free as in the case of Euclid’s axioms you mention. The basic terms have a meaning, are known implicitly by those who use them. This makes them dependent, to a certain degree, on the cultural/historical background of these. Time is one such term everybody “understands”, hence can make (disputable) statements about it without being able to define it. God was another such term in the context of the closed western world of “Christendom” in the past.

ctd

ctd
Today you do not have that implicit consensus, therefore I have suggested (in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9389&page=0#150883) to start from Sagan’s maxim, which posits that “all there is” (exists) can be investigated by science (including consciousness, again a term hard, if not impossible, to define). If you agree with that, you can call anything you like God and then use scientific methods to determine whether it exists or not as Richard Dawkins does.

If you disagree with that - i.e. lack belief in Sagan’s maxim, to use the form some atheists prefer - as I do, then you have the problem of how to know - represent, model, picture - that “supernatural” reality that cannot be investigated by science. How to know - represent, model, picture - “natural” (i.e. investigated by science) reality is a non-trivial problem of the philosophy of science. So it should not be a surprise that the question of modeling (my favourite term) supernatural reality - where you do not have that more or less direct division between the subjective and objective reality connected through sensual perception (and mathematics) - is even more complicated. Here, instead of different physical theories with their mathematical models, you have different religions that “model” this supernatural reality differently. God is an essential part of that reality that is modeled as a person by the Abrahamic religions.

I admit, I did not answer your question satisfactorily. All that I tried to say was that
(a) it does not make much sense to ask about God if you accept Sagan’s maxim, and
(b) if you do not accept it - e.g. because you have personal reasons for looking for purpose and meaning in your life and the (natural) world around you, but cannot find them within what science can investigate - then, and only then, arises the question of God as an a priori given entity that you can model e.g. as a person.

There are no objectively compelling reasons to choose (b), and if you choose it, to contemplate a personal God as giving purpose and meaning to existence both objective and subjective.

I quick survey of the comments in this threat reveals that the content of the article is used as a peg for the usual battle between believers and unbelievers. Why do we always get into this rut? And why is there so little progress? There have been some highly intelligent posts, George's being an example, but the discussion generally flays around with the usual insulting and sarcastic arguments.

The real issue is not whether God exists as some divine being but whether the Christian story is true i.e. that it reveals an event in the past that even now shines light into our darkness. Does the absorption of violence by Jesus promise the end of endless revenge? God is truth. In Trinitarian theology, and there is no other kind, the truth of the Father is seen in the Son and revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. This is the God that Christians worship and it has nothing to do with most of the discussions that inevitably occur on my articles.

We have to get over the atheist/theist divine. It is irrelevant to a discussion of the truth of God.

Peter Sellick

Peter Sellick wrote: "We have to get over the atheist/theist divine. It is irrelevant to a discussion of the truth of God."

Dear Peter Sellick,

The atheist/theist divine (I assume you mean divide. Interesting slip) is irrelevant to the truth of God? Apparently whether or not there is a God is irrelevant to the truth of God? I don't think there is any truth of God. It is just simply two more unprovable propositions.

Proposition 1. There is a God.

Proposition 2. There is a truth of God.

David,
On the contrary, it is possible to look into the face of Christ and see truth. It is this truth that takes the place of the old supreme being. This is why Christianity has much in common with atheism, the gods of old have been found not to exist. What does exist is the truth revealed in an historical event. That truth is non-foundational, it exists without visible means of support, it does not require the existence of a being, other than the being of Christ to support it. This cuts the ground from atheism and theism and directs the question to the truth that is revealed. Real atheism would dispute that the truth we find in Christ, my example was the promise of the end of violence, is not true. It is not true that we find our lives in the person next to us, it is not true that evil will have the final say, it is not true that an evil act is the end of our moral life.It is not true that if we would have our lives we will lose them. Cancel all these out and more and we have true atheism, the end of talk about god and the end of civilisation as we know it.

This is why Nietzsche was so disturbed by his conclusion that god was dead. Read Craig Thompson's piece in OLO.

Peter

Dear Peter,

It is possible to look into the face of a person who may never have lived and if he ever lived is now dead and see truth?

That is rubbish. Absolute total rubbish.

Truth does not exist as an abstraction without support. You are confusing religious belief with truth. Your ‘truth’ is in effect a synonym for irrational belief.

Real atheism does not concern itself one way or another with Christ any more than with with Zeus or any other version of deity. Atheism is the belief that there is no God. Christ is a humanoid version of God in Christianity as Zeus was a humanoid version of God in the classical Greek religion. Judaism is a theistic religion. Atheists do not believe in the Jewish God who has absolutely nothing to do with Christ. Although Islam respects Christ as a prophet, Muslims do not regard Christ as God in any way. They believe there is no God but Allah. Atheists do not believe in Allah. Islam and Judaism are monotheistic religions. Christianity has invented a God in three parts. Atheists simply do not believe in God in any form.

Atheism is not the opposite of Christianity. Atheism is the opposite of theism of which Christianity is only one version. Christianity is theistic but not monotheistic.

The end of violence? There has been no noticeable decrease in violence since the invention of Christianity. In fact much of the violence since then has been perpetrated by Christians.

Peter, you may mean well, but it seems to me that you are demanding that people accept your superstition as somehow embodying truth.

Most of us will face the death of loved ones by cancer or other means. Your superstition will be helpful to some. Other superstitions will be helpful to others. I am dealing with my grief without those superstitions.

How can Sells suggest that a belief in God is not at issue, when it is surely at the foundation of his proposition that we should accept death willingly, even embrace it? A belief in God, and in an 'afterlife', and immortality, is surely at the root of his conviction?

What then of suicide or euthanasia - if we are to willingly embrace death? Only in due season then? And, how are we to know when 'the time is right' and in what circumstance?

And to suggest in his last post that 'Trinitarian theology' is the only kind? 'God' may be endemic, but in cultural, and not restrictively Christian terms. In culture, 'God' may be axiomatic, but in many and varied forms, with many associated beliefs or understandings. To contend that the Christian God is the only true God is to deny the vast mass of humanity who maintain a sound theology, but based on a different understanding of God. But of course, for generations Christian charity has denied the validity of other belief systems, no matter how nurturing and socially constructive they may be, and has alternatively sought to 'convert' the 'misguided' to belief in 'the one true God'. Could this not be just pride and superego?

Many cultures accept death, and have customs for dealing with it - the best caring for the dying, the worst leaving them to rot. Neither Christianity nor Judaism has a monopoly on dealing with death with compassion and reverence, and all too often these days Capitalism looms as the all-consuming 'God' - a God of self interest.

I dislike the current usage of the term 'Judeo-Christian', particularly with the word 'tradition' appended. It smacks of a convenient, even political, 'construct'. Old Testament, New Testament, and that's an end of the association, as far as I am concerned. I prefer 'Human', and can only hope this may one day be the 'Tradition' - the pursuit of 'Humanity' or 'Humanity for God', as the prevailing and common understanding and tradition. Let history be a record, and Humanity look to an all-compassionate future.

Dear George,

After retirement I did courses in the local university. One was about nineteenth century English protest movements. The instructor brought in two differing eye witness accounts of Peterloo where protesting workers were killed by government forces. The two accounts differed so much that it seemed as though they did not witness the same event. Actually since the two eye witnesses were not at the same place in a chaotic situation they were actually witnessing separate parts of the same event. The two eye witnesses could not see the same thing.

The instructor mentioned the breakup of the Manchester Methodist church which caused a schism in Methodism. There were two main theories as to the basic cause of the breakup. The immediate cause was disagreement about getting an organ.

Marxist historians (my instructor was one) put the schism in the context of the class struggle. The church elders were mainly factory owners, and the congregants were mainly workers. The Marxists had it that the workers objected to the dominance of the capitalists so their separation from the church was a revolutionary act. Methodist historians saw it as a doctrinal dispute with those opposing the organ supporting the ‘purity’ of worship without sensual embellishments.

I wondered about the difference and doubted both explanations. The records were available in Brisbane. From those records another explanation emerged. The church elders wanted the organ. However, they were businessman and treated it as they would treat any new enterprise. They would organize it and then raise the money to finance it. Their concept would be effected with other people’s money. Instead of floating a stock offering as they would if it were a public corporation they increased the dues. The congregation did not want to pay the increased dues and split. If the elders had financed the organ by themselves there might have been no split.

Since I was neither a Methodist nor a Marxist the instructor was puzzled by my interest. I wanted to find out more about the Methodist schism since neither explanation sounded right, and I was curious.

continued

continued

My previous post made the point that one’s explanation of history is based on one’s general outlook. I think you share that view. Possibly my interest in the Methodist schism was due to something in my outlook that I’m not consciously aware of besides mere curiosity.

In regarding Hitler and the Nazis many consider them uniquely evil. That excludes us from considering the evil impulses within ourselves. That gives us a tool to denigrate others. We can call them Nazis, and they are beyond redemption. I think there is a little Nazi in almost everybody.

Another mistake is to assume that Nazism was an aberration having little to do with the pre-Nazi past. We are all prisoners of the past. As Faulkner said, “The past isn’t even past.” Mosse identified certain trends that Nazism exploited that were already present in German society.

In the eleventh century when armies went to the Crusades on the way through Germany they massacred Jews.

Martin Luther’s diatribes against Jews were printed in the Nazi papers. An extract:

http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. …

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies…

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. …

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb…

Fifth, I advise that safe¬conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like.

The Nazis merely followed a well established Germanic Christian pattern. Their operations were more efficient than the past actions, but Hitler followed Christian tradition.

Dear Peter (Sells),

As you know, I have always tried to understand you, and am not that ready to call your post rubbish or superstition. I disagree with much (not all) of what David writes (mostly about Christianity) but I can understand him. So let me try to understand you on the background of my position.

As a Catholic I see my beliefs - the rational presuppositions of my faith - come in four steps:

1. What I wrote about as disbelief in Sagan’s maxim which claims that (natural) science can inform us about ALL reality.
2. Beliefs (“models of the supernatural”) that make me a monotheist, believer in one God (trinitarian or not), which brings me in company e.g. with (religious) Jews and Muslims.
3. Additional beliefs that make me a Christian (in addition to cultural determinants and preferences).
4. Additional beliefs that make me a Catholic (in addition to cultural determinants and preferences).

Step 1. I expresses my fundamental philosophical (metaphysical or ontological) preference, Step 2. the religious background of my world-view, Step 3. my religion, Step 4. my religious preference or “orientation”. I think Step n does not make much sense (especially to outsiders you want to argue it with) if you do not accept Step n-1 (or argue it first).

In my view you are speaking at the level of Step 3. without accepting Steps 2. and 1. Without belief in God and the supernatural, Christianity - with whatever function you ascribe to Jesus - would be a castrated religion not very different from secular ideologies. Does this make sense to you?

Dear david f,

I certainly agree that "one’s explanation of history is based on one’s general outlook" and I am grateful for your illustrations and interpretations broadening my outlook.

>>I think there is a little Nazi in almost everybody.<<

This is true if you equate Nazi with evil, a more general term, but I think I understand what you mean. It is certainly true that Jews were outcast, persecuted, and worse, practically throughout the pre-Enlightenment times when Christianity was the sole religion forming Western culture (Christendom). However, this civilisation gave us not only negative things, like hatred and persecution of Jews (or atrocities perpetrated by Crusades on Muslims, other Christians and Jews, etc) but also positive things that eventually led - through a very painful transformation - to what we today like about the West, including, Spinoza, Einstein, Mendelsohn etc. You might remember that not being a historian, nor philosopher of history, I like to quote A. N. Whitehead: “Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology." (Science and the Modern World).

Thank you for the link and quote from Luther’s pamphlet that I knew of but never actually saw quotes from. I am probably not going to read it all (similarly Mein Kampf), but in spite of trying to place it in historical context, I am horrified. Do you know of some Catholic cleric, contemporary of Luther, who would have written about Jews using a similarly abhorrent language? I am just curious. The almost only positive thing that can be said about Luther in this respect is that his version of Christianity gave us also Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

>> Another mistake is to assume that Nazism was an aberration having little to do with the pre-Nazi past.<<
This is a point that apparently also Daniel J. Goldhagen, author of “Hitler's Willing Executioners”, is trying to make, and it is also how the problem is being seen by one side of the Historikenstreit I referred to in a previous post.

George,
Thank your for your thoughtful post and the unusual outbreak of politeness that you have evoked in this thread.

As a scientist I agree that natural science promises to give us knowledge of all physical causality. As a theologian I begin from a different point than you. My jumping off place is the primacy of Christology in theological discussion and not belief in God that can be shared with other monotheists. Indeed, I think that having the incarnation at the centre of the faith, and how can one not, considering the witness of the NT, makes Christianity incomparable with other religions. My dispute with the Roman Church is that they almost always begin with an idea of the universal God received as an innate idea, philosophically supported with arguments about the origin of the universe, integrated with nature. You can see this clearly in Aquinas.

To understand this you need to know something about the Swiss theologian Karl Barth whom Pope Pius XII described as the greatest theologian since Aquinas. Barth broke the connection that natural theology assumed, that God was available to us in a natural way. He was responding, in part to German Christians under Hitler claiming that God was the God of the Fatherland and of the Arian race. To do this they had to use a general understanding of god and not the God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. In response, Barth placed Christology at the beginning and end of theology, insisting that he "broke into human life vertically from above" or words to that effect. This move produced the Barthian revolution that has influenced Catholic theologians like Urs Von Balthasar.

This is why I think that a general idea of the existence of god is dangerous, because it is simply a receptacle of our own hopes and fears as Fauerbach so ably pointed out. This is also why I insist that arguments about the existence of God lead us nowhere and that a more fruitful discussion between believers and unbelievers is about the truth of the gospel.

David,

“It is possible to look into the face of a person who may never have lived and if he ever lived is now dead and see truth?”

Firstly, the consensus among historians and biblical scholars is that Jesus did live and die (under Pontius Pilate, a verified historical figure). That may be the only historical fact about him that we know for certain, the details of the gospels are preaching rather than history.

But on a more serious level, your statement would appear to cancel out any understanding of the dead. I use “look into the face” as a euphemism for knowing in a way similar to knowing Shakespeare, or Isaac Newton etc. Having said that, there is a difference. Christian theology is all about the presence of Christ, in the Word preached, the sacraments celebrated, the church as the body of Christ. Presence is the work of the Holy Spirit without which the Church would be a memorial society for Jesus. Presence is the message of the resurrection, this man may be physically dead, with all that that entails, but he is present whenever two or three are gathered in his name.

To understand that you have to let go of scientific rationalism and use your imagination. Your posts show the usual imaginative restrictions of someone trained in scientific rationalism for which if there is no evidence and the evidence cannot be tested then it cannot be true. If you miraculously became a Christian from your present state you would be a biblical literalist, a fundamentalist.

Christians live within the hermeneutic circle, they know what they believe and believe what they know. This is heresy for science and rightly so, but for faith it is the only way, because skepticism does not get you very far. The problem is that scientific rationality has trumped all other kinds of rationality and led to an impoverished understanding about what it means to be human. Let us leave scientific rationality to what it was designed for, the investigation of nature, and not apply it to the conundrums of human existence

Dear Sells,

I know that Christian theology is all about the presence of Christ. As I pointed out in my post Christianity is only one of several theistic religions. Other theistic religions do not posit a divine humanoid figure. That is found in the polytheism of a previous age. Pontius Pilate was a historical figure, but that doesn’t mean Jesus was. Pilate was discharged because of excessive cruelty. That differs from his portrayal in the Gospels.

If there is a God than it seems reasonable that that God would be a presence which would be no more likely to be in human than in walrus form.

IMHO the major flaw in Christianity is its concentration around a humanoid figure. Both Islam and Judaism seem much more reasonable. Christianity in personifying deity is a retreat from monotheism.

I regard Christianity as an effort to create a religion that would appeal to the subjects of the Roman empire in the first century. To do that they had to adopt elements of paganism and put them together with elements of Judaism. A key element of paganism is a God in human form.

Other key elements in paganism are the eucharistic communion, a sacrificial figure taking on sins and the resurrection. Mithra, Apollo and other pagan deities had some or all of these features.

Most primitive societies have creation myths. Genesis incorporates a couple of those myths. There are two stories of the creation of man tacked together. In one woman derives from man’s rib. In the other they are created separately. In Sumerian the word for rib and mother are the same. The first creation story preserves the Sumerian pun though the words for rib and mother are different in Hebrew.

Plato had the concept of the fall. The ideal forms are perfect, but their representations on earth are degenerate. This was incorporated in the Genesis story and emerged in the form of Original Sin in Christian theology.

Buddhism, Judaism and Islam do not incorporate much of the above nonsense found in Christianity and do much less violence to reason than Christianity.

What would a post from Sells be, without its doublethink moment.

>>To understand that you have to let go of scientific rationalism and use your imagination. Your posts show the usual imaginative restrictions of someone trained in scientific rationalism for which if there is no evidence and the evidence cannot be tested then it cannot be true<<

Truth, it would appear, lacks any rational foundation, and is purely a product of the imagination. Any use of logic or scientific thought disqualifies you from ever arriving at an understanding of what can be true, since these are "restrictions".

How convenient.

How very... odd.

davidf you write

'Buddhism, Judaism and Islam do not incorporate much of the above nonsense found in Christianity and do much less violence to reason than Christianity.'

you left out atheism, darwinism and humanism which really exposes your Christophobia.

Dear Sells,

In your enthusiasm to differentiate your particular view of Christianity from the more widely held view and understanding, through your denial of monotheist teachings, you not only do a grave disservice to Christianity but you deny the very basis of your own belief - in denying the Father. Jesus, as the incarnation of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, exalts and gives direct evidence of the Father - and Jesus' teachings and miracles are held to be through the power of the Lord and the Word of the Lord, and not of Man. God is the Father, and Jesus resides with, or in, Him. Such is the general understanding.

You may well exalt Jesus, as the Son of the One True God. To do otherwise is to recognise Jesus only as a man, albeit a Prophet.

Jesus was a Jew, and recognised and taught His interpretation of the religion of Abraham. Hence, He forged an unbreakable link with the God of Abraham, and with the Old Testament as the origins of the New. He came to an oppressed people, to give them hope and a means to bear their burdens with integrity and humanity, to express and to demonstrate the power of love and forgiveness. We would do well to recognise and embrace the whole of His works and intentions, and not to nit-pick those which support our own predilections or purposes.

God is the God of All, and His Son His representative to All.

Man is imperfect, and hence bears the burden of original sin - the sin of imperfection. Man's task is to overcome, for the good of All, in compassion and understanding, and not in prejudice and division.

David f, a walrus?

Saltpetre: Walrus in memory of Snub Pollard.

Dear George,

I was not arguing with Peter Sellick’s beliefs as much as I was arguing with his apparent expectation that stating them would be a compelling argument for them.

You stated the four pre-suppositions of your faith. We part company on pre-supposition one. Since we disagree on that there seems no point in arguing that matter since we disagree on a statement of faith. I appreciate the fact that you stated the pre-suppositions of your faith so well and admit that I have different pre-suppositions in my faith.

I do not equate the Nazis with evil. Evil is a theological term which I generally avoid using. When I stated there is a little bit of the Nazi in all of us I was referring to the Nazi’s hatred and suspicion of the Other which in their case were the Jews and other race enemies. I think we all make gradations of those we feel closer to and farther from. Those gradations may not be based on shared ethnicity or religion. I feel less distant from you than I feel from Peter Sellick.

However, I feel that you have created an entity called western civilization instead of recognizing that it is a process rather than an entity. There was no entity that gave us anything. There were conflicting trends in Europe from which various ideas and actions arose.

Spinoza’s ideas proceeded from an examination of both Judaism and Christianity and a rejection of them both. The Amsterdam of Spinoza’s time was free enough so he could voice his ideas and have them considered by other intellectuals. The Jewish community of Amsterdam excommunicated him as he was a heretic who denied basic concepts in Judaism.

Moses Mendelsohn came from a sealed Jewish world and entered a Christian one where he managed to be largely accepted. However, note that his grandson, Felix, and other descendents were no longer Jews. Read Amos Elon’s “The Pity of it All – A Portrait of Jews in Germany” for an account of Mendelsohn’s interaction with the Christian community.

Continued

Continued

Einstein challenged the accepted physics of his day. He was working in the Swiss Patent Office in 1905 when he developed many of his ideas as his Jewishness apparently precluded his getting an academic post.

Actually I find things to admire in Luther. He was a man of his times and challenged some abuses that existed in his time. Other evils of his time he accepted. He accepted authoritarian rule and supported the German rulers in their suppression of the Peasant’s Revolt. Thomas Müntzer who accepted Luther’s theology was a leader of the Peasant’s Revolt.

The persecution of the Jews by the Catholics was generally the result of local action. In general the popes tried to restrain it. Like Luther the Catholic Erasmus was not all of a piece. He was a humanist and a civilising influence, but his feeling toward Jews was not much different from that of Luther.

From “The Roots of Anti-Semitism” by Heiko Oberman p. 38:

“in order to stem the new tide of Judaism, Erasmus was even prepared to jettison the Old Testament. In this way the New Testament and the unity of the church could remain intact: “If only the church would not accord the Old Testament such great significance. It is a book of shadows, given on loan, until the coming of Christ.””

Ibid.; p. 40:

“If to hate the Jews is the proof of genuine Christians then we are all excellent Christians.” (Si christianum est odisse Iudeos, hic abunde Christiani sumus omnes.)

“The Roots of Anti-Semitism” is published by Fortress Press, a Lutheran publishing house. Fortress has done a terrific job in confronting the Lutheran past. Unfortunately there is a split. I was talking to the pastor of a Lutheran church, and he told me about the sophisticated exegesis of the Bible and other searching topics at St. Olaf’s Seminary where he studied. I asked him how much of this material he discussed with his congregation. He said he ‘did not want to disturb their simple faith.’ He has since left the faith. How many other clerics are there like that?

Dear Sells,

You wrote: To understand that you have to let go of scientific rationalism and use your imagination. Your posts show the usual imaginative restrictions of someone trained in scientific rationalism for which if there is no evidence and the evidence cannot be tested then it cannot be true. If you miraculously became a Christian from your present state you would be a biblical literalist, a fundamentalist.

The above is disturbing. You have created a false dichotomy. One can use one’s imagination and still subscribe to scientific rationalism. Good scientists do precisely that. The pre-eminent example of that is Einstein. He used his imagination to conduct thought experiences which revolutionised physics. You reveal your predatory nature when you state “If you became a Christian…” I get the feeling that some Christians have little respect for the views and belief systems of other people. I certainly would make any statement to you starting, “If you became a rationalist…” I am satisfied that you are what you are and believe what you believe. Although I disagree with your views and faith I respect your right to have them and have no desire to missionise you. I would like the same respect from you.

You also wrote: Christians … know what they believe and believe what they know. This is heresy for science and rightly so, but for faith it is the only way, because skepticism does not get you very far.

Scepticism gets us a long way.

According to the Gospels Jesus was sceptical of the religious practices and beliefs around him. Luther was not a faithful Catholic. He doubted the actions of the church and the doubts he voiced were powerful.

Humans have invented many new religions. They all were founded on scepticism regarding existing beliefs. Then the controlling body of those religions demand faith because they want no further questions or doubt. Doubt leads to understanding. Faith leads to conformity to what exists. If early man had faith in the tribal conditions in which they were living we, their remote descendents, would still be living in those conditions.

Sells,
I do not think the point is whether you speak here as a scientist or as a theologian, but whether you can make yourself understood by those who are not theologians and can see science only in an atheist context. Christianity is a religion, hence comparable with other religions, whatever our evaluation of the comparison might be. Though I am not a theologian, I can understand if you “jump off” Christology as a preacher but not as somebody who is trying to explain his world-view/religion to outsiders.

As a fellow Christian I don’t see myself as a complete outsider but still don’t understand how you can talk about Christology without assuming (not proving or arguing for) the existence of a transcendental God. I do not think Barth did. I can understand Barth’s dislike of natural theology, also his view that the task of theology (he does not speak of philosophy) “is one with the task of preaching” but I do not think he would have thought that “a general idea of the existence of god is dangerous”.

The fact that something is the receptacle of our own hopes and fears does not mean that it is dangerous to speak about its existence, just because Feuerbach might overestimate the psychological dimension of our faith. Like the fact that a finger is pointing to the moon, and we can see only the finger, does not imply that we should not talk about the moon’s existence.

>>arguments about the existence of God lead us nowhere<<
Here I tend to agree.

>> a more fruitful discussion between believers and unbelievers is about the truth of the gospel.<<
Here we are back to square one: you can discuss “truth of the gospel” only with somebody who shares your understanding of the word “truth”.

As established in our previous encounter, where we differ is that, using Galileo’s language, I prefer to read both the Books - that of the Scripture and that of Nature - as complementing each other, whereas you prefer to see the Bible taking absolute precedence over science and even philosophy.

Dear david f,

Thank you for the interesting posts and information, especially regarding Erasmus and the Jews that I did not know about.

>>I feel that you have created an entity called western civilization instead of recognizing that it is a process rather than an entity. <<

I admit my use of the expression is influenced by Arnold Toynbee, a controversial historian (and philosopher of history). However, in my dictionary “the West” is defined as “Europe and its culture seen in contrast to other civilizations”, so implicitly also the West is seen as a civilization, and googling "Western Civilization" brought up 7.38 million pages that contained the phrase. So process or entity (I used neither description), Western Civilization seems to be a widely used expression.

George,
I think Barth would protest at the general idea of God, surely that is what the German Christians held to and it was found to be a facade. The general idea of God is an empty concept that allows the believer to act as they will.

Ah, the two books! I have tried to investigate the origin of this concept with little success. I think it is a convenient division in epistemology that allows us to have knowledge about the world that does not come from Scripture. This presupposes a time in which all knowledge was thought to come from Scripture and room had to be made for the rise of natural science. The problem is that the two books are incommensurable. Scripture is a compendium of imaginatively conceived history, poetry, song, legend and story put together by a people who had no concept of nature as a reality separate from God. It does not pretend to talk about nature as would today’s natural scientist. Calling the act of scientific investigation a reading of a book is interesting because it presumes a writer, God. So the concept relies on the argument from design that I find infelicitous. The thing about the doctrine of the two books is that they cannot contradict each other. Well of course, one is a map of the human heart and the other is an ordering of data and hypothesis, two completely different things.

I know my atheistic approach to Christian theology is disturbing and confusing. It does not mean that I am an atheist simply that when I look to the cross I see God disposed by human hands. The problem of whether God exists is not a biblical problem, the argument in the NT is how the truth of the gospel destroys belief in the false gods of religion and law. Christianity is the only religion with an antireligious polemic. It was religion and law that crucified Christ and they are both condemned. After the cross God cannot be general, he must bare the face of Christ.

Dear George,

I am sorry to question your use of ‘western civilization.’ The west, western civilization, western culture etc. can be a geographical, cultural, religious, political or other designation. Like many words and phrases it has many meanings. Ghandi made a quip to the effect that he thought western civilization was a great idea and should be tried.

I try to avoid the words western civilization, right/left (in a political sense), ultimate, Judeo-Christian, fantastic, awesome and other expressions which are either overused or have too many conflicting meanings, but I have no right to expect that of others.

Sells wrote: “After the cross God cannot be general, he must bare the face of Christ.”

Dear Sells,

Your bigotry is evident. Believers in Allah, the Jewish God and the Bahai’i God still have deities which have nothing to do with yours. You misused the word truth to mean acceptance of your mumbojumbo.

I believe that in the future Christ will take his place along with Apollo, Mithra, Thor, Jupiter, Adonis and the other humanoid Gods that humans have invented. The humanoid Gods will be joined on the deity rubbish heap by the non-humanoid Gods of Jews, Muslims and Bahai’is.

Although I hope humanity will stop creating gods of any kind I don’t believe our species will stop the activity. Humans will probably invent new Gods, and some of the believers will claim, like you, that their God is the real God and all others are Brand X. They will continue to confuse belief with fact.

Davidf - for your announced long years of life you seem to have accumulated much wordy knowledge but which appears limited to fact and unfolding fact from that which can be observed and measured or deduced.

For you to confuse Jesus Christ with what you call humanoid gods displays a greater accumulated ignorance or is it just plain old bigotry. Your general antipathy towards the Christian faith seems to cloud your understanding of its underpinning values of love for God and neighbour in western civilisation. This meme is embedded in our culture and has served us well. The reality of war and tribal / religious disharmony has always existed ( our Creation story gives us an understanding) but saw its zenith with the meme from Social Darwinism - the survival of the fittest - that perverted the intellectual and cultural ( militarist) elites of the 19th / early 20th centuries.
Jesus Christ was a man and, in faith, God. Understandably an absurdity to reason on earth, but such truth comes to us from the transcendent where reason - Logos - was, is and ever shall be. He exists, not by our own human making through desirous love but rather through the agape love of God. The God that has chosen to reveal himself through the history of a people and finally through a man, for all nations and peoples.

I shared the light from the Paschal Candle at the Easter vigil Mass through an aged lady from Asia and I passed it onto a young woman from Kenya and her children. The Lord is Risen - alleluia - and our faith extends to all peoples and all nations. That we shall all be one, and, to have life to the full. What human being could not hope such offerings.

Self-delusional (and hence 'blind') belief or faith is fundamentalist fanaticism (or ignorance), and would be a sad thing if it weren't so dangerous. One might just as well suppose that gravity is proof that the Earth 'sucks'?

“After the cross God cannot be general, he must bare the face of Christ.” Interesting slip, writing 'bare' instead of 'bear'. But then, with Sells it appears that all things are possible, and nothing (except faith) may be taken for granted.

David f, and George, thanks for the insights and rationality.

As a Christian, and a non-practicing Catholic, I hold a simple faith embracing nature as a sacred possession, and humanity's task being to nurture and to understand, taking nothing for granted, and facing all challenges with goodwill.

In almost all human endeavours there are rules which must be followed, to ensure safety and fairness, etc. If only we had an effective set of universal rules for living, people could believe what they might, follow any faith, and the world could move forward in harmony and mutual respect. But, I guess, there may always be some who will reject a path of peace, on any pretext.

Dear boxgum,

I don’t confuse Jesus Christ with humanoid gods. He is one. Invent a god in the form of a cow then you will have a bovine god.

You wrote: “The God that has chosen to reveal himself through the history of a people and finally through a man, for all nations and peoples.”

The above neatly describes what is wrong with some believers in Christianity. You are not content to believe in your religion and try to live up to its ideals. You must push it on “all nations and peoples.”

http://markhumphrys.com/christianity.killings.html tells of the many massacres by Christians of people who didn’t want their beliefs or simply did not share their beliefs.

From the website: “The Church started killing unbelievers as early as the 4th century. The killing (often with torture) of heretics, church splinter groups, dissenters, atheists, agnostics, deists, pagans, infidels and unbelievers was supported by almost all mainstream Christian theology for over a thousand years, starting with the intolerant St. Augustine (died 430 AD).”
….
“Christian thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas continued to justify the killing of heretics and unbelievers throughout the medieval period.
o St. Thomas Aquinas justifies killing people who are not convinced by his arguments.
o See the Summa Theologica, 2nd Part of the 2nd Part, Question 11, Article 3.“

The scientists, Servetus and Bruno, were murdered by Protestants and Catholics, respectively. Christians have a history of murder and massacre. The secular state tamed the murderous conduct of Christianity. A few years ago I could have been murdered by Christians for saying what I am free to say here.

My antipathy to Christianity is due to its history and the fact that JWs and other Christian missionaries have tried to push their beliefs on me. I have no objection to people seeking out a religion or other people telling about their religion to people who ask for it.

However, unwanted missionising is simply harassment.

Stop harassing people. Respect the fact that other people have a different outlook neither needing nor wanting yours and there will be less antipathy to your beliefs.

Sells,

I am not a theologian, and certainly not a specialist on Barth as you seem to be, but I doubt it very much that Pius XII would have described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas, had Barth explicitly claimed that “the general idea of God is an empty concept which allows the believer to act as they will”.

It is a different thing to ask whether the God Christians worships is the same One worshiped by e.g. Jews or Muslims, and referred to by Western philosophers. It seems that here we have to agree to disagree. It has perhaps something to do with your objections to seeing the God who inspired the Bible, and the God who created - more precisely, keeps on creating - the material Universe, as the same God.

>>Ah, the two books! I have tried to investigate the origin of this concept with little success.<<
“Galileo then wrote a long letter to Christina of Lorraine, where he developed the view that God speaks through the book of nature as well as through the book of Scripture, and that the Bible teaches people how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go” (http://www.enotes.com/galileo-galilei-64681-reference/galileo-galilei-174759).

“Bacon's famous argument that it is wise not to confound the Book of Nature with the Book of God comes into focus, since the latter deals with God's will (inscrutable for man) and the former with God's work, the scientific explanation or appreciation of which is a form of Christian divine service.” (from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/).

I agree with more or less all you say about the two books. None of that contradict my belief that it is the same God who can be seen as being behind both.

>> My atheistic approach to Christian theology is disturbing and confusing.<<
I agree.

>> The problem of whether God exists is not a biblical problem.<<
I agree.

Dear George,

You wrote: “It is a different thing to ask whether the God Christians worships is the same One worshiped by e.g. Jews or Muslims, and referred to by Western philosophers.”

In my view it is a different God. The God of western Christianity is even a different God from the God of eastern or Orthodox Christianity. There is a dualism in western Christianity which exists to a lesser extent in Orthodox Christianity and not at all in Judaism or, I think, Islam.

I’m sure you will tell me where you think I am wrong in the following.

One difference is the Trinity which does not exist in the Muslim or Jewish concept of God.

Theodicy is a branch of Christian theology explaining the presence of evil in a world created by an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God. Judaism does not pose such a God. Everything comes from God - evil as well as good. The book of Job deals with Job handling that. Satan in Job acts as God’s agent rather than as an opposing entity.

That evil proceeds from God is explicitly stated in Isaiah.

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

One can ask where was God during the Holocaust. That is a question in post-Holocaust Jewish theology. However, accounting for the presence of evil or theodicy is not a Jewish problem. Everything comes from God including evil.

Another difference is the concept of Original Sin. In Christian terms the Fall of man was effected by Adam and Eve committing sin in the Garden. Jesus took on the sins of mankind in his redemptive sacrifice.

In normative (there is no central authority in any branch of Judaism who can make pronouncements that all Jews must follow.) Jewish thought the guilt for the sin of Adam and Eve went with their death. It was not transferred to their descendants. No one can take on another’s sins. Every child is born with a clean state. One is responsible only for one’s own sins.

George,
Pius XII did refer to Barth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth

I think we worship the same God as Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There is a Trinitarian structure to OT belief, the prophets are endowed by the Spirit of God, the suffering servant figure in Isaiah is the image of Christ.

Thanks for the reference to Galileo and Bacon, I will chase them up.

Sells wrote: “I think we worship the same God as Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There is a Trinitarian structure to OT belief, the prophets are endowed by the Spirit of God, the suffering servant figure in Isaiah is the image of Christ.”

Dear Sells,

You started out with a preconceived notion and then either manipulated the Jewish Bible or consulted Christian scholars who had manipulated the Jewish Bible to find a Trinity there..

I am not a Christian. However, if I want to find out what Christians believe I will either ask a knowledgeable Christian or consult Christian writing on the subject. You should have done something similar if you want to comment on Judaism. I have read the New Testament. Even though I quote it I will ask a Christian how she or he interprets it before I say what Christians believe.

Jews do not accept a trinity. It is that simple whether you can interpret the Jewish Bible that way or not. Jews do not have the multiplicity of creeds that Christians have. However, they do have a basic statement of faith. It follows:

“Hear, O, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” That is a clear denial of Trinity.

Because you can find a Trinitarian structure in the Jewish Bible does not mean Jews worship a Trinity. I doubt that you can find a rabbi who worships or accepts a Trinity.

The concept of God is different in different religions. It is even different in different branches of western Christianity. The Socinians rejected both the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. Although denial of the Trinity was made a capital crime in England in 1648 under Cromwell’s Commonwealth attempts to get all Christians to follow the doctrine have never been completely successful.

I have recently read “The Protestant Revolution” by Naphy who is Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Divinity at the University of Aberdeen. All Protestants do not even worship the same God.

Dear david f,

Nobody doubts that there are differences between the three Abrahamic religions, and even between “subreligions” of each one of them. As far as God/YHWH/Allah is concerned, these differences can be seen both as describing (or modelling, as I like to say) different Gods or as differently describing the same God. Some people (e.g. Sells and you) prefer the first, some others, including myself, the other possible interpretation. However, I think there is a consensus among Christians, as Sells points out, that the Jewish God of the Torah/Old Testament is the same as the Christian God, although differently “modelled” (e.g. with or without the Trinitarian “structure”).

Perhaps this is not a good comparison, but the phenomenon that makes apples fall of trees, was studied by Newton as a (gravitational) force, by Einstein as something making space-time warped and perhaps transmitted by gravitons, is the same thing, although described, modelled in different ways.

>>One can ask where was God during the Holocaust.<<
This is a non-trivial, not only Jewish, question. There is probably no answer to that, the same as to the equally humanly unanswerable question “What were God’s intentions with humanity (or the Jews) when He let the Holocaust happen?”

Sells,

>>Pius XII did refer to Barth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth<<
Yes, this is exactly the source I consulted when I wrote that Pius XII endorsed Barth. By the way, the same Pius XII accepted the advise of a scientist - actually the very Georges Lemaître - not to claim Big Bang as evidence that the Universe was created.

George,
More detail can be found on Galileo and the two books from Biagioli:Galileo's instruments f credit. P232. It can be seen on Google books. It appears that Galileo only used the phrase for political purposes.

Do you have a reference for Georges Lemaîtr's advice to Pius XII. I have thought that the use of astronomical observations to support an instant of creation by God very suspicious. It is part of the problem that occurs when the theological and the natural scientific gets confused.

Sells,

>>Galileo only used the phrase for political purposes<<

If by political purpose you mean Galileo responding to Bellarmine and others who thought they had to resolve the seeming conflict between the Bible and science by proclaiming Bible the sole holder of truth about this world, then you might call Galileo’s heritage political.

Today it is not cardinal Bellarmine but professor Dawkins and his apostles who think they can resolve this superficial conflict by proclaiming science the sole holder of truth about human life and the Universe. The difference is that today we already have a Galileo platform to stand on when defending both the “books” against modern day Dawkinses as well as Bellarmines.

>>Do you have a reference for Georges Lemaîtr's advice to Pius XII<<

Googling “Lemaitre, Pius XII” gave 27,400 results, e.g.

“the close relationship between Pius XII and Georges Lemaître, who enabled the Pontiff to understand from closer to hand at the beginning of the 1950s the meaning of the new cosmological models which were by then beginning to become established in the scientific world, and the philosophical, or even theological, questions which at first sight appeared to be involved.” (http://www.disf.org/en/Voci/93.asp)

>> the problem that occurs when the theological and the natural scientific gets confused.<<

Many problems can occur if two different perspectives are confused, which does not mean they cannot be combined to render a richer, “multifaceted” insight - in our case into Reality, (within and without us), with God at its center trying to communicate with us on two different platforms to make it easier for us to accept (not comprehend) Him.

Dear George,

It is not my main difference with Sells that the two religions worship the same or different gods. The depiction of God from the arbitary creature at one from another place in scripture means to me that the same God does not even exist in the entire Bible. The reasonable God that Abraham can argue with about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not the unreasonable God that demands Abraham murder his son.

My difference with Sells that in trying to make out that the Jewish Bible has in it a Trinity he is finding in those scriptures what he wants to find rather than consulting a Jew to find out what Jews believe.

The God of the Bible is inconsistent. One of the reasons that I am an atheist is that the God of the Bible is not an entity I can accept as existing. Those who can accept such an entity can argue that the ways of God are beyond the understanding of men. I do not accept that. He is a mythical creature.

Dear david f,

I hope you enjoyed your stay at the Atheist Convention.

>>The God of the Bible is inconsistent<<

This is a fact known for centuries, not waiting to be discovered by contemporary atheists or skeptics. Heaps of explanations, interpretations, qualifications, circumvention etc have been offered through the ages to avoid a total rejection of the Bible as a source of some valuable inspiration and guidance (albeit not scientific information, as we know now). Therefore, Christians speak of hermeneutics, and I suppose something similar exists also in the Judaic reading of these ancient texts.

The reasons for avoiding such rejection are sophisticated. They do not follow from any rational necessity but rather from what is called “faith”, the feeling by some of us that human existence, and the world surrounding us, must have a purpose that can only be beyond what we can represent, "model", through scientific theories.

You might remember that when trying to explain my beliefs I was referring to narrative, mythological, but also purely speculatively rational (Aquinas?) models of those aspects of reality that cannot be described by mathematical models entering physical theories. In pre-scientific ages such models - e.g. the Book of Genesis - were offered to explain ALL reality, including those aspects of it that today are much more effectively described and explained by science.

In this sense, instead of saying “God is a mythical creature” I would say God is a being (or just "something", if you like) modeled (evenntually together with other “spiritual” beings), as a person e.g. through myths or mythological models. Models that - in distinction to scientific models - cannot be supported or falsified through experimentation based on a strict separation of the subject from the object.

I think something similar is true about the emancipation of ethics, without necessarily leading to the rejection of the Bible. As the source not only of “truth” (in spite of “creation in six days”) but also of ethics, of what is “good” (in spite of God acting there in a way our understanding of what is good could not endorse)

Hello David J..
Christian belief is a response to a God who has revealed his presence and love through a people, then a person, and from that time 2000 years ago the Church of the People of God. As imperfect such revelation may be to a tidy mind it is nevertheless an accepted understanding of some billions of people on earth this day.

You do not believe. I do. You see my belief being of a myth. Sells and George seem to need intellectual filters to see it at all. I see it as a simple reality of life, revealed through the witness by millions of good people across millenia living lives of service to others expressing the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen.

David your limited reason stops at the provable, measurable fact. What you see as irrationality, I see as my extended reason that flows from the the depth and breath of transcendent truth that incorporates the will of God which penetrates the whole of existence giving substance to human purpose. Where you see end, we Christians see completion of a task revealed to each of us as individuals to engage in life in passivity, and in full activity.

cheers