Sincere greetings all. My early readings of Peter Sells' provocative statement left me thinking (and I paraphrase): he is a scientist and a preacher whose view of reality integrates both the natural - testable by the outward eye and hand on the material - and the supernatural - testable by the inward eye and the hand of the Spirit on the 'invisible'. If any new observation from either realm appears to contradict his previous experiences, then he makes the quest to integrate these. At worst he would hold the new contradiction in tension with the old experience.

I didn't read that Peter didn't believe in any of the extraordinary miracles of Bible text (nor I suspect any extraordinary scientific observation he might make). Rather, he has embraced into his personal being (body, mind, soul and spirit) what might once have appeared to him to be two contradictory observations, for example, "Dead men stay dead" and "Dead Jesus came back alive bodily, and stays that way"!

His reference to F Scott Fitzgerald's statement is firstly what I perceive Peter Sells is and does, in his laboratory weekdays, in his sermon preparation and delivery weekends, but ultimately in social discussions and life's practice the following week.

But I also perceive that is what we all are doing in this forum: accommodating new reality with the old. It's just that some have discovered the wider reality that unifies, for example, the above apparent contradiction, while others have not.

I still hold basically to my earlier reading of Peter: what he has written, who he is, what he believes, and what he practises. What a provocateur?

But dear fellow forum members, I hold you in this high esteem also, even to the point of recognising you as 'provocateurs-speciales for the right and true'. We may not presently look out on the natural and the supernatural with the same perceptions, but we are talking to one another, and that is much the better way to do warfare!

Wobbles,
The talking snake, the rib woman, and the fruit off the magic tree. What do we make of these? I think you raise these in jest, but I want to try and deal with them, even if many think I try to defend the indefensible.

A big part of Sellick’s article, and also the proceeding discussion, has been to ask what is true Christianity? Is the resurrection (in which Sellick does not believe) a necessary belief in the Christian faith (as others claim it to be).

I think Sellick is kidding himself if he doesn’t think the bodily resurrection of Christ was not a real event, at least in the opinion of the New Testament writers. If Jesus did not resurrect, then you could throw away the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. What would there be left of Christian teaching? Not much. You could give all the useless copies of the New Testament to Remco to burn. It seems he’s having a big barbeque.

Jesus' death and resurrection is the central teaching of the New Testament (reference 1Corinthians chapter 15).

Now about that rib woman. Adam was wounded in his side to begin the human race. Jesus was pierced in his side with a spear, the culmination of his death.

The talking snake. Adam and Eve believed the snake (the devil) in the Garden of Eden. This was mankind’s downfall. Jesus ignored all temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, even to the point of dying on the cross. This brought about mankind’s salvation.

The magic tree. It was a tree in the Garden of Eden that brought about mankind’s downfall. Similarly, it was a tree on which Jesus was crucified that brought mankind’s salvation.

All Christians, at least all those who have contributed to this thread, would believe Christ died on a cross. It is central to the NT. The writers of the NT went one further and said he resurrected. Now, we can choose to believe it or not, but it seems to me that it all comes as a package deal. All or nothing.

"How on earth can you make a connection with the bible and violence and civil qualities?"

Don't you verbal me Remco. I made no connection one way or another. All I did was distinguish my own (hopefully) respectful dissent from the views of those who advocate the desecration of other people's holy books. You included.

Mick V
The resurrection is indeed central to the Christian faith. A bodily resurrection isn’t.

Whatever Paul met on the Damascene road, it wasn’t a reanimated corpse (non of Paul’s companions saw or heard anything). And in 1 Corinthians Paul indicates that the resurrection is not, or at least not merely, a physical thing.

The original ending of Mark’s gospel is an empty tomb, a strange messenger and some scared disciples – no bodily appearance at all.

The other gospels are cryptic and inconsistent (when read literally) in their post-resurrection accounts. Were the disciples in Jerusalem or Galilee? How come so many of the stories say people who knew Jesus extremely well didn’t at first recognise him - those on the Emmaus road didn’t know him despite walking and talking with him for a considerable a time, Mary took him for a gardener, and even Peter, John and the Apostles didn’t at first recognise him or his voice when fishing in Galilee? How did he mysteriously appear and disappear, including sudden materialisation in a locked room?

These are not the types of things the gospel writers wrote about him before his death, even when describing “miracles”, indicating that the post-resurrection Jesus is not the same as the physical pre-crucifixion Jesus.

Your claim that biblical literalism is an “all or nothing” package has no logic. Muslims believe in Christ’s life and respect him as a prophet. Probably most people of other faiths and none will accept that Jesus was a real historical figure lived and was executed in first century Palestine. Many Christians believe much more than that about him without accepting the literal truth of miracles or a physical resurrection.

Imagine, if we all accepted Jesus was a mystic (and whatever miracles and associations you care to make about the man). There is no dispute he once lived.

Imagine with a little creative winding back of the damage the likes of Ireaeus made in 180AD when he wrote out the bits that didnt suit the church of his day (eg perhaps the Gospel of Judas).

Forget the mythologies as irrelevant to the true wisdom of what Jesus stood for. What is left is a way of being so very similar to the essence of all the religions.

We are then approaching a universal belief. All that would then be required is the killing of god (and buddha etc). God is not an object or thing - an antromorphic aberation.

We would then approach a way of being where we are all one. There can only be love. No sense of separateness. No debates about one religion compared to another. We would be in the now.

All this debate here and elsewhere would be irrelevant.

Thy will be done.

Its Amazing to see the constant and unaltered responses from those who believe they KNOW that christianity is an absolute myth, a fictitious reproduction of the life of individual which was far less extraoridanory than many beleive. Its important to provide an educated review of the debate rather than regurgitate what others have presented for centuries, trust me I have heard many of the arguments from family, friends, workers, student colleagues who all believe they know better than to believe christianity is real and the bible is documented fact. On the flip side of the coin noone can provide any response to support the BIG BANG theory, evolution, or any other scientific measure,

Any academic would know that simply stating a view is not enough to prove it, Christianity has hundreds of well documented events to support its claims, what do those especially in this forum have to support theirs?

And one more thing those in this forum with the lack of respect to refer to Us christians in the negative and pathetic ways that you have, do yourselves a favour and aim a little lower on the intelligence scale for your debating partners, after all all Our God is far more intelligent than the lame attacks that you make on our credibility.