Dear Banjo (and Prebs),

Here is what I actually wrote: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16853#296419 . It ends with me saying that you can work it out for yourself: you are an Australian by birth, and also a Christian “by birth” (i.e. by infant baptism), in both cases whether you like it or not. This terminology is not my invention.

George,
I protest that I have not explained the resurrection away but have placed it at the centre of Christian faith. I doubt that you can provide a rational account of the resurrection narratives. I think we are past the hand waving that goes on about this.
Peter

Peter,
Any response to what I posted yesterday? (Prior post)
Cheers
Geoff

One again, it looks like I'm the one who is going to ask, "what is the panic", with a fairly simple, straightforward attempt at resolution involving two threads of Xtianity apparently at odds, to do with miracles and proposed that depending on belief, you will see the evidence and results of Jesus' death born out in what appear to be severe grief reactions, and /or something to do with "magical" events.

Anyone who has crossed that before/after bridge that comes with the first brutal acquaintance with grief understands that the loss of a loved one induces a fierce, powerful set of disempowering responses that eventually form the completed human and is compatible with a bare bones reading of the NT that is eventually coherent if less ambitious in its claims as a meditation on life, value and meaning eventually leading to some thing oddly compatible with "reality".

I don't have to beleive in miracles to have a sense of someone who, if a mate or family member, I would have grieved for, judging by the story (or let down when it came to the crunch, remorsefully looking back).

If you like, I choose to employ the story as a reference point for my own efforts to make sense of life, along with Socrates, Buddha, a thread that reaches through history and is an underlying basis for both Nietzschean existentialism and Marxist activism, eventually.

No, I'm not religious (although it's interesting on reflection, how often Ive "got on the blower" when things ran crook and no one ëlse wanted to know me). I'm just not prepared to throw away the gift of my cultural heritage and reference points, the history of humanity handed me on a plate and definition of what makes god, god, on mere prejudice and actually welcome contemplations on the nature and basis of reality.

Dear Peter (Sells),

I do not want to be cheeky by noting that it is not necessary to place the Resurrection at the centre of Christian faith since it has always been there.

By “explaining away” I mean exactly what you call a “rational account of the resurrection narrative” (or the closely related belief in afterlife). Jesus’ Resurrection, as narrated in the Bible, was obviously not a resuscitation (and was not many other things).

Nevertheless, in distinction to you, I am not a theologian. This was just my personal reaction to your - or anybody’s - attempt at giving an explanation of that what cannot be rationally explained.

[Even if I was a theologian and thought I had a rational explanation of the Resurrection, I would not be able to fit it into 350 words; and, besides, this would not be the right forum for it.]

If you persist in trying
To attain what is never attained
(It is Tao’s [God’s] gift!)
If you persist in making effort
to obtain what effort cannot get;
If you persist in reasoning
About what cannot be understood,
You will be destroyed
By the very thing you seek.

Chuang Tzu (in Thoma Merton’s translation)

.

If you persist in trying
To attain what is never attained
If you persist in making effort
To obtain what effort cannot get;
If you persist in reasoning
About what cannot be understood,
You will have lived your life completely
And have nothing to regret.

Lao She (in Banjo Paterson’s translation)

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