BeeTee, what are the two positions I'm having trouble holding together?

I had only one point to make, friend: that many Christians (including, I infer from your postings, you yourself) believe that the miracles of the bible literally happened, and so consequently I assert that (despite Mr Sellick's view) it is quite appropriate for opponents of the Christian world-view to rebutt that world-view by asserting that the miracles are no more than mythology.

I did not, you'll note, attack Christian people for holding those beliefs. In fact I quite respect those beliefs. Genuinely, it must be really teriffic to believe there is a loving God looking over you, and a heaven waiting at the end of the day. But I can't find a way to believe that stuff myself.

And Sellick seems to be arguing for a brand of Christianity with no miracles, no supernatural being, and no heaven. One wonders why anybody would bother signing up!

Ho Hum

The mass hysterics you describes sounds like the Global warming High Priests

Agree kalin. Why invent the BS that now represents religion (all religions except perhaps Buddhism)?

The answer is simple. The extra stories and threats are to make people afraid and seek the "church" in the absence of any other higher authority.

To quote one George Carlin :

"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!"

I particularly like Gerorge's jibe about God being all powerful but needing money. Says it all really doesn't it. A ruse to get money is the root of religion, like all good cons. Exactly! And don't forget he loves you despite punishing you.

Read more of this at http://www.rense.com/general69/obj.htm. George is a comedian but he's spot on with religion.

AnthonyMarinac,

The faith of your childhood that you describe is exactly that – a child’s version that many of us grow out of as we become adults. Most mature Christians do not hold those beliefs, and Peter is right that this caricature is a straw man selected and crafted by sceptics because it’s easy to demolish.

True, some people cling to the miraculous and supernatural, but a large number of us who describe ourselves as Christian have indeed signed up for “a brand with no miracles, no supernatural being, and no heaven”.

It is not a promised reward of heaven or the comfort of a supernatural father figure that makes me faithful, but participating in a tradition that reveals – often allegorically and symbolically, sometimes very bluntly - profound truth about existence and authentic humanity.

The supernaturalism of today’s fundamentalism is not an authentic expression of original Christianity, but a defensive, contrarian and actually very modern reaction to the perceived threat of materialism and modernity. It is a dead end that virtually defines faith as the capacity to believe the impossible.

As Alan Watts has said "The common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for comfort rather than follow it."

Thank you Peter. In your previous articles I have criticised you for being obscure. But here you present your views - which seem to me to be very close to those of the heretical Rudolph Bultmann (? spelling) of the 1930's ( ? decade) less ambiguously. I was a believer/ preacher/ interpreter of the biblical texts in the 1970's, and had, I think, come to a similar position as you. I decided though that I could not continue to preach symbolically whilst my congregations believed literally. I resigned my office to prefer the label secular humanist. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I should have stuck with it, become more explicit rather than symbolic, and attempted to disabuse more people of their disaccredited literal beliefs. But I couldn't bring myself to challenge what to them was so important and valuable.

I am getting this right? Peter Sellick and I actually have something in commmon?

That is, we both enjoy reading the New Testament and admire the personage of Jesus. But believe him to be conceived just like any other normal baby, and quite dead.