Oliver,
“… the catch is, we don’t know if a given fabrication is aligned to God or is just a common garden variety fabrication.” Well, actually, you do…. within Christianity.

Squeers,
The scene originally intended to begin the film Life of Brian: Three shepherds discuss the joy of being shepherds, while angels appear to 'other' shepherds somewhere in the distance - we see bright lights go on and off behind the main shepherds' backs, and then, a short while later, they hear a rustling noise and, thinking it might be a predator, they throw a rock into the bush. It turns out the noise was made by the shepherds who are on their way to Bethlehem, one of whom is hit on the nose by the rock; his friend is eager to tell the main shepherds the good news about the baby, but he cuts off his friend, refusing to share any news with the people who broke his nose. The main shepherds, having not heard the good news, yell that the other shepherds are "a disgrace to the profession" for rushing off to Bethlehem, no doubt heading to the pub to drink their fill, and abandoning their sheep to predators. As the scene comes to its close, we have the coup de grace: One shepherd asks, "Is it A.D. yet?" And the other replies, "Quarter past, I think."

Probably a brilliant scene on a number of levels, and as Eric Idle points out, whenever any event of major significance takes place, there are generally people who miss it because they're busy with all the mundane things of life, "hoovering" and so on. Monty Python's appeal is to a postmodern, anticonvention audience comfortable with irony. Perhaps, and rather strangely, there is nothing actually "scandalous" about Jesus of Nazareth today, notwithstanding the original accusations of “blasphemy” made against him by the religious back then...

>> Even if God exists, the catch is, we don’t know if a given fabrication is aligned to God or is just a common garden variety fabrication.

>> Well, actually, you do…. within Christianity.

the arrogance of christianity in a nutshell.

Relda,

“… the catch is, we don’t know if a given fabrication is aligned to God or is just a common garden variety fabrication.” - O

"Well, actually, you do…. within Christianity." - R

Please explain. I don't see why Christianity would have a privileged position. One can assume, only Zeus can truly know Zeus, and that the Ancient Greek scriptures need not be literal (Tillich), yet valid still theology from a limited human perspective. Else, one maintains it is okay to speak of Heaven but not of Olympus.

What is the difference between "Jesus feeding the multitudes" and "Zeus punishing the Titans"? Especially, if one takes the stance, neither story needs to be literal.

Do we have the claim Christian fabrications are truthful fabrications and other religious' fabrications are untruthful? I can't see why a theist from the tens-of-thousand non Christian religions could not use Tillich to defend themselves from having outsiders punch holes in their myths.

relda wrote: Perhaps, and rather strangely, there is nothing actually "scandalous" about Jesus of Nazareth today, notwithstanding the original accusations of “blasphemy” made against him by the religious back then.

Dear relda,

It isn't strange at all. One religion's belief is another religion's blasphemy. The followers of the blasphemer have established a religion based on the blasphemy.

The Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam have one creed apiece. Judaism: Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Islam: There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.

The Christianity Trinity is blasphemy in terms of both the Jewish and Islamic creeds as is the belief in a humanoid God.

When Jesus whipped the moneychangers from the temple he was desecrating a place of worship by interfering with an accepted practice in a violent manner. That’s a criminal offense.

Blasphemy against God is a victimless crime.

The last prosecutions for blasphemy were in 1971 in the US and 1979 in the UK.

Leonard Levy wrote “Blasphemy”, a history of the sanctions against it – mainly in the US & UK.

It has generally been applied to Christians who dissent from Christian orthodoxy such as the Trinity and divinity of Jesus. The established denominations have persecuted and murdered Unitarians, Bapists, Quakers and Presbyterians.

From the book jacket:

Levy also makes it clear that while past sanctions against blasphemy have inhibited all manner of cultural, political, scientific and literary expression, we also pay a price for the current extraordinary expansion in the scope of permissible speech. We have become, he says, not only a free society but a “numb” society. We are beyond outrage

Oliver,
Tillich was a Chaplin in the trenches of WW1 and came to the realisation a certain God had died on the battlefields of Europe. The ‘nice God who would make all things work out for the best’ had died. He realized that the war had given concrete shape to the doubts of his adolescence. It was not only his doubts or his scepticism that prevented him from giving unqualified assent to God- it was also the situation of total war bringing into question God’s benevolence. One could no longer easily preach about the munificence of God or issue promises of peace from ‘cheery’ heights when the whole of western civilization seemed to be dying.

“I have constantly the most immediate and very strong feeling that I am no longer alive. Therefore I don't take life seriously. To find someone, to become joyful…these things are things of life. But life itself is not dependable ground. It isn't only that I might die any day, but rather that everyone dies, really dies… not that I have childish fantasies of the death of the world, but rather that I am experiencing the actual death of this in our time.”(Paul Tillich,November 1916).

What is challenged is the paradigm of God as an overwhelming physical or metaphysical force. The old God-of-power is displaced with the idea of God as an unconditional claim without force. As a claim without force, this ‘God’ does not physically or metaphysically intervene in nature. This does not counter in any way the essence of Christianity, on the contrary, this ‘weak’ theology in truth says,“..It is the act of the faithful person, an act which,as such,is the attestation of an intimate consciousness of the fact that it exposes itself and allows itself to be exposed to the absence of attestation, to the absence of parousia. ... Christian faith is distinguished precisely and absolutely from all belief”. Jean-Luc Nancy, Dis-Enclosure:The Deconstruction of Christianity

Dear david f,
Per se, a violent act is perhaps natural so, as with the strong and instinctual drive for sex, I wouldn’t necessarily condemn it.

Virtually all the last pages of posts have demonstrated the logical necessity to compartmentalise God.
Satan had to be invented to explain the very real existence of evil. If God the creator is perfect, and perfectly good, then logically evil cannot exist in His creation.
In precisely the same vein, the Jewish God had to be compartmentalised, to encompass the idea of a loving, compassionate God. To the ancient Jews, God was the Lawmaker. He was He who Must be Obeyed. The bible was a contract, between God and his chosen people. There was no love; there was no compassion. There was just the LAW.
These people were not 20th century city dwellers. these people were intimately acquainted with the harsh reality of natural existence; kill or be killed, eat or be eaten.
There is no (obvious) compassion in nature.
Jesus came along with a crazy idea. One can only wonder at his relationship with his (foster?) father; a man who accepted his mother despite the fact that she was already pregnant.
Why isn't he as revered as Mary?
Jesus' crazy idea was that God the lawmaker was actually loving and compassionate (just not a 'SNAG'; didn't know how to show his deep feelings).
The result?
Hallelujah! we have a volunteer!
Now Jesus is accepted as the compassionate aspect of an otherwise ruthless and harsh God.
And the Holy Ghost? Well obviously we can't have the Jewish Patriarch acting like a Greek, can we?
If there's any fornicating to be done, let the ghost do it.