Jenyar
But to use Nicea as the gunpoint from which religion has fired its man-made myths and smote millions of innocent tabula rasas. Even the argument that the New Testament is anti-Semitic is a bit short-sighted
Not quite as short-sighted as you might think. The topic is narrow--
Is Satan the source of all evil? Trying to discuss that in the context of its own issues is one thing, and while it is predictable that to someone like me that Satan is not the source of all evil, it is also important to me to help Christians get past this silly notion.
In villainising the Jews instead of the Romans the Bible makes clear under whose laws Jesus was crucified: under the 'mythical laws' of religion, while the unbiased roman laws were the hands that similtaneously washed itself clean and delivered the lethal punishment.
What's funny about that is that the Bible depicts Pilate as a hand-wringing moron; this is obviously a more favorable depiction than deliberately cruel or tyrannical. This notion is explored in Pagels'
Origin of Satan, but I haven't the book on hand right now; in the meantime, Rutgers University offers the following:
The Pilate described by Josephus & the Roman historian Tacitus was a strong willed, inflexible military governor who was insensitive to the religious scruples of his Jewish & Samaritan subjects & relentless in suppressing any potential disturbance. This stands in sharp contrast to the impression conveyed in the Christian gospels which, for apologetic reasons, portray him as reluctant to execute Jesus. Pilate's decade long tenure [26-36 CE] testifies to both his relative effectiveness in maintaining order & to the aging emperor's lack of personal attention to administrative affairs. The ruthless slaughter of thousands of Samaritan pilgrims by Pilate's cavalry [ca. 36 CE], however, led to such a strong Palestinian protest that Pilate was eventually recalled to Rome. Tiberius died before his return; but the new emperor [Caligula] relieved Pilate of his command & exiled him to Gaul [Vienne-on-Rhone]. In good Roman military fashion, as one who had suffered defeat & public disgrace, he committed suicide. (
"Pontius Pilate")
In villainizing the Jews instead of the Romans, the authors of what would become the Gospels were playing to the Romans for favor.
The people in question used to be Israel and Jerusalem (to some it still is), but the gospel brought God's message to all the world: that we are all chosen for salvation, and have all received it through the resurrection of Jesus.
There are some issues about that which make it a problematic part of the theology. However, the best way to go about explaining that is to examine your next point:
Jesus was fully God and fully human. His torture and death was physical and mental, with all the pain and suffering we know first-hand ourselves.
We'll start with the first part of that:
•
Jesus was fully God and fully Human: This piece of rhetoric is one that, frankly, I find empty. For ages the Catholic Church struggled against the heresy of
docetism, which focuses on the assertion that if Christ was divine, his suffering was only the appearance of suffering and not genuine human suffering, or, as you have put it:
•
His torture and death was physical and mental, with all the pain and suffering we know first-hand ourselves: I would ask you to consider the facts. Jesus
knew who he was. In the modern day, some assert that Jesus knew who he was from the moment of Creation. Indeed, I have a most curious volume, entitled
The Clear Word. Its author, for the record, is
Dr. Jack Blanco, chairman of the Religion department at Southern College of Seventh-Day Adventists. I want it understood that this is a
Christian doing this to the Bible.
But I have long wondered who God was talking to in Genesis 3.22:
Then the LORD God said: "See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever."
Who is the "us" that man has become like? And what does that mean? I've always wondered if God is frightened at this moment, for why must man not be allowed to live forever and possibly become "their" equal? So who are "they", anyway? I've heard a few suggestions in the past: the heavenly hosts, the other 2/3 of the trinity, and so forth.
Dr. Blanco offers me an answer:
(3.21) But God didn't carry out their sentence that day. He told them He had a plan to save them. Adam must sacrifice a lamb as a symbol of their Savior who would come and die in their place. God then took the lamb's skin to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness. (22) God said to His Son, "Man was like us, but he has changed. He now knows good and evil, so he's infected with sin. If we leave him in the garden and he continues to eat from the Tree of Life, he will never die, and he and his descendants will live in sin forever. We can't let this happen." (Genesis 3.21-22, The Clear Word, pg. 5)
I mean, with Blanco making it so much more clear, I wonder how it is that Christians survived with such crappy translations of the Bible. The amount of extraneous information asserted to make the story palatable, in addition to the rescripting of the role of God ... come on--not only is he butchering the Bible but also shooting holes in the redemptionist scheme.
The question becomes for the moment,
Why did God will that mankind should fall?
For God has knowledge, and it is clear by the presence of The Son at Eden that by the time He became manifest in the flesh, He knew darn well what was going on. Look at the role reversal between the Bible in an English translation and the "paraphrase" by Blanco:
•_In the Bible, man
has become like the divine by "knowing" good and evil..
•_In the paraphrase, man was like the divine, but loses that commonality by "knowing" good and evil. Furthermore, God "had a plan to save them."
Blanco's subscription to the notion that it was The Son to whom God was speaking points not only toward Jesus' knowledge of his identity and mission (and, as we know, the Gospels are clear on this point), but when combined with God's knowledge and will paints a picture in which sin and Redemption were part of God's creative scheme, a necessary development.
Blanco writes:
He now knows good and evil, so he's infected with sin. If we leave him in the garden and he continues to eat from the Tree of Life, he will never die, and he and his descendants will live in sin forever. We must rely on the presumption of God's knowledge for this to be true, because the logical connection of the one to the other is tenuous at best.
Myself, I doubt Blanco's perspective. It renders the presumption of sin as an obvious necessity of Creation, and thus begs the question,
What mercy is this? In terms of Jesus' combined humanity and divinity, it is hard to combat the docetic result. If Jesus knew what was afoot, then the nature of his human suffering was changed. Part of the human aspect of sacrificing one's life to the greater good is that one rarely, if ever, knows for certain that the sacrifice will bear fruit. You don't take a bullet for your child because you know that she will escape unharmed, but because you're giving her as much a chance as possible. If the next salvo cuts her down, so be it.
Which actually brings to mind Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story", but such a digression would be extraneous. If you ever come across it, though, give it a read.
But if Jesus knew his sacrifice would bear fruit, as the Bible seems to suggest despite Blanco's glaring gaffe, the terms of the sacrifice are ultimately changed, leading to the quasi-docetic assertion that the mental and spiritual anguish, at least, bore a different character; and this
would affect the perception of the physical anguish. Did Jesus know it was worth it? Or did The Son merely believe?
Which is why the kingdom of God is here and now. Christians could have stayed being Jews and war-waited for the messiah easily. Yet Jesus wanted us to change our ways, which is why he has a following as peacemaker even among non-christians. He preached that we can't use religion or law anymore to validate our faith or our freedom. "Our fight is not against flesh and blood..." We could only use our faith in God's ability to save our lives.
As an American, I have a problem extending this vision beyond your declaration. If you believe and practice as you express, more power to you and my best wishes in your quest for understanding. But statistically and functionally it is a far different climate around here. (Insert here my typical litany against modern Christian political activism, its manifestations, and its results.)
So our goal is the same, Tiassa
Perhaps. My end goal is a harmonious human endeavor. If it is unified, excellent. If it is cooperative, so be it. Whether Christians disappear or learn to function harmoniously with their neighbors on a mass scale doesn't actually matter to me; I just know that the species really needs such a large and influential portion of the human endeavor to stop working against the rest. By whatever condition this comes about, and within the bounds of human dignity, I don't care.
Only I don't know how someone with your intelligence can blame Christianity for the world's suffering any more than you can blame humanity.
Its central role in much negative history makes it an easy target. Its denial of its difficulties makes it dangerous. Not only are Judeo-Christian, Christian, and post-Christian ethical constructs primary influences over Western culture, they are also the bulk of what makes Western culture so problematic and dangerous.
Why do you call Iraq a holy war, if it isn't waged under the banner of religion?
Ask George W. Bush. He's the one who (A) insists that Iraq be considered part of the War on Terror, and (B) stooped to declaring that "God is on our side". I think he's serious. I think he really believes that crap.
Would you say this a religious war more than it is political?
There's no doubt it's political and economic. However, religion being the opiate of the masses (I prefer straight opium, myself), it must be taken into consideration to what degree religion affects politics. We can look beyond the blatant examples: teleministries, moral majorities, Christian Coalitions, and so forth. One of the hard things about fighting against Christian dominance of the political scheme is that its ideas are so pervasive among people. People are taught as children to believe in God, and that God is, more often than not--though decreasingly--some variant of the Christian God. From the Acts of the Apostles on through today, this vein of culture which has followed the Bible and sometimes relied on it has relied on conditioning and superstition, and has licensed some of the greatest advances in human barbarism. To many of us these issues of history would be less important if we didn't see the cycles recurring in our own time. Certes, we're not burning people at the stake in this country, but at least one former president (Poppy Bush) thinks atheists shouldn't be allowed citizenship, and one current one (Dubya) would rather pagan groups be left out of his faith-based initiatives. I also recommend Max Weber's
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which can help you understand the fundamental tie between religion and economy that has so skewed Western, and especially American politics.
Then on which side are you on?
I haven't determined the sides. However, as I look at George Dubya versus the fundamentalist Muslim factions and illegitimate dictatorial governments, it's hard to tell who the good guys are. In Texas terms, everybody's wearin' a black hat. I stand for peace. If my country opts for war, 'tis tragic indeed. But we'll win, so I have no need to worry about that. Instead, I would rather worry how to get society past the idea that wars solve anything. Christianity, unfortunately, has made itself one of the stumbling blocks along the road to harmony. When somebody's reason why compels them to act to the detriment of other people on the rock, it's a fair issue to want to know what's going on. It can be reasonably argued that Hitler's goal was the same as yours or mine insofar as he saw order and harmony through the species serving a common purpose. We rightly questioned his version of "Why". And when "God is on our side" and we're carrying a homefront war against Muslims, I feel well within my rights to question "Why?" And undeniable among those reasons why is the tendency of Christian-influenced imperialism to treat other human beings badly.
I recognize the Constitution as the Supreme Law of the Land in the United States, but even that cannot change the fact that I am, fundamentally, a human being first. It is only dualistically-challenged folks like George Dubya who need it put so clearly--we are either with him or against him. I'm on the side of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I'm on the side of Justice. I'm on the side of promoting the general welfare, securing the blessings of liberty, and providing for the common defense of all humankind. My patriotic side strives to save this country from itself.
You show your stripes,
Jenyar:
I won't disagree with you that religious folks and scientists alike have made some ridiculous statements
What was the purpose of expanding the scope of this discussion as such? Was there any purpose? Or was I supposed to nod and go along with it?
But to use Nicea as the gunpoint from which religion has fired its man-made myths and smote millions of innocent tabula rasas.
Nicaea is an interesting nexus in Christian history. I find it quite interesting though that you would see this in terms of
religion in general. Christianity does not the whole of religion compose, and the sooner people get used to it, the better.
If the Kingdom of God is here and now, then I have a few choice words for the King; I'll keep them to myself for now, as they're not decent for general use.
thanx,
Tiassa
