Dear Philo,

You really did not answer my question. I asked you, “Please cite Christians who have encouraged independent thinking and questioning.”

You named Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, Wilberforce and Luther King. I assume by Luther King you mean Martin Luther King jr.

Although they themselves questioned the existing system none of them encouraged others to question. The gospels were written years after the death of Jesus so we don’t know how accurate they are. However, they do not show Jesus as encouraging independent thinking and questioning. In fact he did exactly the opposite. John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” It doesn’t matter how good a life you have led. It doesn’t matter what you think. Unless you accept my brand of mumbojumbo you are dead meat.

Bishop Spong refers to the above passage thus:

“This text has helped to create a world where adherents of one religion feel compelled to kill adherents of another. A veritable renaissance of religious terror now confronts us and is making against us the claims we have long made against religious traditions different from our own.”

I have read the Bible and saw no place where independent thinking and questioning were encouraged in either testament.

Martin Luther was an intolerant bigot. He supported the princes in the Germany of his time in suppressing the peasant’s revolt. He believed that the peasants should accept the religion of their ruler. When Jews did not accept his new rreligion he violently condemned them. His sermons were quoted verbatim in the Nazi papers to arouse feeling against Jews.

William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jr. in my opinion did much good. However, neither of them encouraged independent thinking and questioning.”

I ask again: Please cite Christians who have encouraged independent thinking and questioning.

davidf'
Obviously you read things in your influenced world of current Western thought. Read them in their historical context and the social changes that occurred as a result of their ideas and life. Obviously you do not think critically and contextually.

Dear csteele,

You wrote: “If the fruits to our society come disproportionally from private schools then shouldn’t they be given a disproportionally greater amount of funding? An example might be the argument for the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra receiving generous government support.”

I think here you are begging the question. I think the fruits to our society come disproportionally from private schools precisely because they get greater funding and not through any inherent value in private schools. I have no reason to think that a private school would produce any better results than a public school that got equal funding.

Support for the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra is another unrelated issue.

Dear Philo,

Sure, I am influenced by the current world of western thought and appreciate the scientific method that encourages me to think critically. Unfortunately the big monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam discourage critical thinking. Christianity emphasizes faith whereas the seeking of knowledge requires doubt and questioning. Islam means submission. Just accept what you are told is God’s will. Some rare religious figures may encourage questioning. One religious figure is Buddha who encouraged people to question all words including his. He recognized that he was living in a particular place at a particular time and what he said might not appy in the future. The Greek myth of Prometheus encourages questioning the Gods.

Although Christianity emphasizes faith over reason some Christians encourage questioning and independent thinking. http://www.johnshelbyspong.com/ is the website of Bishop Spong who questions and encourages questioning.

Philo wrote;
“My daughter sends her son to a private school because his mates will be respected leaders of community and business in the future and she wants him to have them among his friends when he leaves school.”

For some reason I find this incredibly sad. Oh well each to their own.

Dear davidf,

You wrote; “I have read the Bible and saw no place where independent thinking and questioning were encouraged in either testament.” Well you must have skipped over such things as Job and the various parables of Jesus.

While I don’t agree with Philo that you fail to think critically and contextually I do feel there is something in the request to view things a little more historically. Certainly by the time John was written the divisions between Christians and Jews were deep. The Midrashic tradition that Spong talks about in his book ‘The Hebrew Christ’ does explain much of the shift across the Gospels and is quite illuminating.

A word of advice, having read at least five of Bishop Spong’s books there is one I wish I had refrained from and that is his autobiography. It certainly diminished my perceptions of the man despite the worthy things he has produced. My advice would be to refrain from it.

Finally you wrote “the big monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam”. I am partial to Bloom’s argument that the last two great monotheistic religions are the Jewish an Islamic faiths. Christianity has always had a tenuous hold on a monotheistic claim with the Trinity but with the growth of the American ’personal Jesus’ and the Holy Spirit relegating the ‘Lord God our Father’ to a background figure makes it virtually indistinguishable from other polytheistic practices, especially when you add the Virgin Mary into the mix.

Dear Philo,

A couple more questions if I may.

What do you understand of the history behind the song Amazing Grace?

And

Do you regard Quakers as Christians?

Dear csteele,

I thought of a place where independent thinking was encouraged in the Bible after I wrote the post. Abraham questioned God about the rightness of his destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. To question God himself is the ultimate questioning. Questioning is not a dominant trend, but it certainly exists in the Bible. I am wrong. However, in Christianity Faith is considered a virtue. I don’t think it should be. While Job is notable for giving the reader many questions as to the meaning of the book Job never seems to question but has faith. One thing that bothers me about Job was its injustice. To test Job:

JOB 1:19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

It is most unfair to kill Job’s sons. What had they done to merit it?

The split between Christianity and Judaism took a long time.

The Church Council of Laodicea circa 364 CE ordered that religious observances were to be conducted on Sunday, not Saturday. Francis Xavier was concerned about Sabbath worship in Goa, India in 1560 CE; he called for the Inquisition to set up an office there to stamp out what he called "Jewish wickedness". A Catholic Provincial Council suppressed the practice in Norway in 1435 CE.

The motivating force for Sunday as Sabbath appears to be to make a greater separation between Judaism and Christianity.

I agree that Christianity with its Trinity, ‘personal’ Jesus and saints is not monotheistic. Monotheism recognizes only one God with no mediaries between men and God. However, if Christians want to refer to their religion as monotheistic even though it isn’t I am not bothered by it.

I believe there were no religious wars over polytheism. One could simply add in other people’s Gods to your pantheon and emphasise which gods you preferred. Bringing back polytheism would eliminate arguments as to the identity of the ‘true’ God. The more the merrier.