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I’ve been amazed often by Bloc Party’s lyrics: this one, from ‘Better than Heaven’ seems like an eloquent summary of the injustice of the doctrine of original sin:
“And there was a time before we were born
when we stood in the garden.”
I wasn’t sure about Intimacy, their most recent album. But lyrics like this, and there are more, make it easier to love.
Supralapsarianism is the belief that God decided who he was going to save and who he was going to fry before he decided to make the world, and then allow the bit with evil and Satan entering the world, so that humanity comes under the threat of hellfire. God is a redeemer who creates and not a creator who redeems. It strikes me that this is a bit like when Michael Jackson dangled a baby off the balcony of a Berlin hotel suite . He must have known he wasn’t going to drop the baby. But no-one else did. Except in the case of God, the vast majority of babies get dropped.
I’m thinking lots at the moment about the resurrection of Jesus. Alot has been made about how it is possible to prove its historicity, and most of these arguments aim answer the question “Did the disciples think that Jesus bodily rose from the dead?” rather than “Did Jesus rise from the dead?” I’m not sure if, or how, this problem can be circumvented.
THAT’S EASTER Life to Death from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.
Watch from about 2:00, for a few seconds, then read this:
Christianity needs sickness…making things sick is the real intention behind the church’s whole system of salvation procedures.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti Christ, 51
I see.
“As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles. Whose authority? The Old Testament? The New Testament? The Koran? In practice, people choose the book considered sacred by the community in which they are born, and out of that book they choose the parts they like, ignoring the others. At one time, the most influential text in the Bible was: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Nowadays, people pass over this text, in silence if possible, if not, with an apology. And so, even when we have a sacred book, we still choose as truth whatever suits our own prejudices. No Catholic, for instance, takes seriously the text which says that a bishop should be the husband of one wife.
Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
Emil Brunner is quoted in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (I.I) as seeking to ’shatter the axiom of reason.’ But can Brunner answer Russell: is it possible to abandon reason without ending up in the problems that Russell describes? I don’t think it is. But rather, I want to suggest an alternative approach.
Humans are narrative beings. Humans need morals in order to create successful societies. Religion provides a narrative into which people can place the narrative of their own lives. And that narrative contains a moral code. The success of the narrative, and the ability of the moral code to sustain a society determine whether a religion will be successful.
Thus, rather than thinking of religion as true or false, it is sensible to think of religion as successful or unsuccessful. The only problem seems with this view is that it is hard to not view ‘untrue’ yet ’successful’ religion as malevolent, yet this doesn’t have to be. The real test is what the products of religion are. If they are malevolent, then we have right to fear. The current view religious belief, as exemplified by the ‘new atheism’ is a sure path to religions developing severe persecution complexes. And the products of persecution complexes are terrifying.
And so religion must be encouraged and supported to realise that the axiom of reason isn’t going anywhere, but that realisation does not for a minute diminish its functionality & benefit for human society.
Atheists have fun running rings round fundamentalists…from Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis.
Jim’s father was a medical practitioner in an adjoining village. He was a plump, bearded, bookish, merry man, very proud of his atheism. It was he who had trained Jim in the faith and in his choice of liquor; he had sent Jim to this denominational party college because it tickled his humour to watch his son stir up the fretful complacency of the saints. He dropped in and found Elmer and Jim agitatedly awaiting the arrival of Eddie.
‘Eddie said’ wailed Elmer, ‘he said he was coming up to see me, and he’ll haul out some of these proofs that I’m going straight to hell. Gosh, doctor, I don’t know what’s got into me. You better examine me. I must have anæmics or something. Why, one time, if Eddie Fislinger had smiled at me, damn him, think of him daring to smile at me! – if he’d said he was coming to my room, I’d told of him “Like hell you will!” and I’d of kicked him in the shins.’Dr. Lefferts purred in his beard. His eyes were bright.
‘I’ll give your friend Fislinger a run for his money. And for the inconsequential sake of the non-existent Heaven, Jim, try not to look surprised when you find your respectable father being pious.’
When Eddie arrived, he was introduced to a silkily cordial Dr. Lefferts, who shook his hand with that lengthiness and painfulness common to politicians, salesmen, and the godly. The doctor rejoiced:
‘Brother Fislinger, my boy here and Elmer tell me that you’ve been trying to help then see the true Bible religion.’
‘I’ve been seeking to.’
‘It warms my soul to hear you say that, Brother Fislinger! You can’t know what a grief it is to an old man tottering to the grave, to one whose only solace now is prayer and Bible reading’ –(Dr. Lefferts had sat up till 4 a.m., three nights ago, playing poker and discussing biology with his cronies, the probate judge and the English stock breeder – ‘what a grief it is to him that his only son, James Blaine Lefferts, is not a believer. But perhaps you can do more that I can, Brother Fislinger. They think I’m a fanatical old fogy. Now let me see – you’re a real Bible believer?’
‘Oh yes!’ Eddie looked triumphantly at Jim, who was leaning against the table, his hands in his pockets, as expressionless as wood. Elmer was curiously hunched up in the Morris chair, his hands over his mouth.
The doctor said approvingly:
‘That’s splendid. You believe every word of it, I hope, cover to cover?
‘Oh yes. What I always say is, “It’s better to have the whole Bible than a Bible full of holes.”’
‘Why, that’s a real thought, Brother Fislinger. I must remember that, to tell any of these alleged higher critics, if I ever meet any! “Bible whole, not Bible full of holes.” Oh, that’s a fine thought, and cleverly expressed. You made it up?’‘Well, not exactly.’
‘I see, I see. Well, that’s splendid. Now of course you believe in the premillennial coming – I mean the real, authentic, genuwine, immediate, bodily, premillenial coming of Jesus Christ?’
‘Oh, yes, sure.’
‘And the virgin birth?’
‘Oh, you bet.’
‘That’s splendid! Of course, there are doctors who question whether the virgin birth is quite in accordance with their obstetrics, but I tell these fellows, “Look here! How do I know it’s true? Because it says so in the Bible, and if it weren’t true, do you suppose it would say so in the Bible?” That certainly shuts them up! They have precious little to say after that!’By this time a really beautiful, bounteous friendship was flowing between Eddie and the doctor, and they were looking with pity on the embarrassed faces of the two heretics left out in the cold. Dr Lefferts tickled his beard and crooned:
‘And of course, Brother Fislinger, you believe in infant damnation.’ Eddie explained, ‘No; that’s not a Baptist doctrine.’
‘You – you’ The good doctor choked, tugged at his collar, panted and wailed: ‘It’s not a Baptist doctrine? You don’t believe in infant damnation?’
‘W-Why, no…’
‘Then God help the Baptist church and the Baptist doctrine! God help us all, in these unregenerate days, that we should be contaminated by such infidelity!’ Eddie sweated, while the doctor patted his plump hands and agonised: ‘Look you here, my brother! It’s very simple. Are we not saved by being washed in the blood of the Lamb, and by that alone, by his blessed sacrifice alone?’
‘W-why yes, but…’
‘Then either we are washed white, and saved, or else we are not washed, and we are not saved! That’s the simple truth, and all weakenings and explanations and hemming and hawing about this clear and beautiful truth and simply of the devil, brother! And at what moment does a human being, in all his inevitable sinfulness, become subject to baptism and salvation? At two months? At nine years? At sixteen? At forty-seven? At ninety-nine? No! The moment he is born! And so if he be not baptised, then he must burn in hell forever. What does it say in the Good Book? “For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” It may seem a little hard of God to fry beautiful little babies, but then think of the beautiful women whom he loves to roast there for the edification of the saints! Oh brother, brother, now I understand why Jimmy here, and poor Elmer, are lost to the faith! It’s because professed Christians like you give them this emasculated religion! Why, it’s fellows like you who break down the dyke of true belief, and open a channel for higher criticism and sabellianism and nymphomania and agnosticism and heresy and Catholicism and Seventh-day Adventism and all those horrible German inventions! Once you begin to doubt, the wicked work is done! Oh, Jim, Elmer, I told you to listen to our friend here, but now that I find him practically a free-thinker!
