Personally i don't celebrate any religious holidays.
they are anoying, the shops are closed.
I have had people gasp at me.. and say that those holidays were _THE_ time to spend with your families and such..
I always get pretty angry when people say that. If i want to spend time with my family (or friends) i make time for them.
I don't need some stupid religion based day off to suddenly realise i _have_ a family that i really should visit on that very day.
If it were up to me.. people would just get more days off in their jobs, and they could create (or chose) their own celebration days instead of having to comfort to some stupid social history of a country.
On topic..
Nothing better than to piss off some fundies on their holiday :)
Maybe we should go check out those 'sunrise services'! Ya never know!
Been there done that. Did not buy the t-shirt or the Religion.
I'd much rather spend any sunrise that I'm awake out taking photos instead of listening to endless droning about some zombie guy and his pissed of dad. Whether it has trumpets and flowers and happy smiley weirdos or not.
The Bunny has Risen! (That's what this is all about, right? RIGHT?)
I killed it with a BB gun a few years ago. Sorry, It was a freak shot. It bounced like a basket ball after I shot it so i had to break its neck. We ate it too.It was kind of dry though.
The name of this festival, itself, shows its heathen origin. "Easter" is derived from Eastre, or Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring and dawn. There also is some historical connection existing between the words "Easter" and "East," where the sun rises. The festival of Eostre was celebrated on the day of the Vernal Equinox (spring). Traditions associated with the festival of the Teutonic fertility Goddess survive in the Easter rabbit and colored eggs.
Spring is the season of new life and revival, when, from ancient times, the pagan peoples of Europe and Asia held their spring festivals, re-enacting ancient regeneration myths and performing magical and religious ceremonies to make the crops grow and prosper.
From "The American Book of Days," by George William Douglas we read: "As the festival of Eostre was a celebration of the renewal of life in the spring it was easy to make it a celebration of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus. There is no doubt that the Church (of Rome) in its early days adopted the old pagan customs and gave a "Christian" meaning to them.
From "Easter: its Story and Meaning," by Alan W. Watts is found: "The story of Easter is not simply a Christian story. Not only is the very name "Easter" the name of an ancient and non-Christian deity; the season itself has also, from time immemorial, been the occasion of rites and observances having to do with the mystery of death and resurrection among peoples differing widely in race and religion."
From "Easter and its customs," by Christina Hole is found: "Vernal Mysteries (spring heathen rites) like those of Tammuz, and Osiris and Adonis flourished in the Mediterranean world and farther north and east there were others. Some of their rites and symbols were carried forward into Easter customs. Many of them have survived into our own day, unchanged yet subtly altered in their new surroundings to bear a "Christian" significance."
Kids keep asking: why the bunnies? why the eggs? how is this related to Easter? They bickered over who got the most candy eggs. On intervening with the eldest, she said, in all seriousness: "mommy. it's chocolate".
And that's $6 from the man in Di Sveator. Do I hear $7? $7? It's a bargain at any price folks... $6 going once, twice at $6, thr... (Loud shouting in crowd...) And that's $7 from the slightly nauseous looking gentleman who just came running in breathless to make his bid... We have $7... (Waves gavel...) C'mon people, I have a hammer too, y'know... We have $7, who'll give me $8...
We had an Iranian housemate back in the day; we all spent good times in mutual cultural explication. (Much of it involved cooking.) We were trying to explain the Easter regalia and things went swimmingly till we got to the bunny.
We had a long moment of silence vis-a-vis the bunny. Later I made Hassenpfeffer, which explains everything.
And yet, you're looking at an image most likely created by a neopagan who believes in his imaginary friend (w/hammer) just as fervently as Christians believe in theirs (nailed to cross), because he decided that Thor makes so much more sense. Or at least that's the kind of person from whom I've heard that line before.
Doesn't so much make me laugh as remind me that if Christianity weren't so prevalent, people would just find other, equally ridiculous bullshit to believe in -- and some of them already do.
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes,
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses,
And whats with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies!
I occasionally get the chance to remind rabid christianists that their god is pretty weak; after all think of the names of the days of the week.
Monday - moon day. no christiany stuff there.
Tuesday - Tyr's day. Nordic god of war.
Wednesday - Woden's Day.
Thursday - Thor's Day.
Friday - Freya's Day.
Saturday - Saturn day
Sunday - no, not the 'son of god. Sorry.
The Bunny was originally the Mad March Hare, racing around the fields at the time of the Spring Equinox, one of the familiar signs that marked the season for our farming ancestors. I suppose calling it the Easter Bunny makes it sound more cosy and less certifiable.
It's pretty interesting how paganism got incorporated into Christianity. Just a question about the easter traditions if anyone knows, which came first, the bunny or the egg?
I once watched very very large "bunnies" (they stood at least 4' tall on their hind legs battling it out like boxers. In Scotland. They are really BIG! They appeared vicious and ready to kill each other. I think the Monty Python sketch was a real rabbit. They kill. All hail the Rabbit God of Vicious Killing. Then again this might have been mating season.
What did Jesus say to the roman soldier once he was up on the cross.
Hey I think I can see your house from up here.
--------------
What's the difference between Jesus Christ and an oil painting?
You only need one nail to hold up a picture.
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Why can't Jesus eat M&M's?
They keep falling through his hands.
---------------------
Jesus and Moses were strolling by the Red Sea, when Moses nudged Jesus and said, "Psst. Hey, Jesus, I've still got it."
Moses turned towards the Red Sea and lifted his staff on high. The angels began to sing, the gentle sea breeze turned into a raging gale, and the waters of the Red Sea were parted. Moses lowered his arms and, with a smug grin on his face, turned back to face Jesus.
Jesus scoffed. "Moses, my boy," said the Messiah, "I have still got it." And with a flourish of his robes, Jesus stepped onto the waters of the Red Sea and began to stride across without so much as a ripple.
But to Moses' amazement, halfway across the water, Jesus suddenly began to sink. He splashed into the water and began to choke and flounder as the waves tossed him around. Moses grumbled at Jesus' sillyness and parted the water once more. Moses helped Jesus back to shore, as the Saviour hacked up salt water.
When they had finally reached shore, Moses slapped a consoling hand on Jesus' shoulder and said, "Don't worry about it, Lord. Last time you tried it, you didn't have holes in your feet."
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why would jesus have made a great pornstar?
He was hung like this *holds hands up like being crucified/showing a size*
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I once saw this bumper sticker "Jesus is my co-pilot and we're crusin' for pussy"
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Why didn't Jesus go to law school?
He was nailed on the boards.
One of the campus frats is having an Easter party tonight. Listening in on a group of first years discuss why they would party, I chimed in "Well, it is a fertility holiday." One piped up that it "was" a fertility holiday, and I had to remind her that all those rabbits and eggs are around for a reason.
I dunno, could all of these "Christ is risen" slogans be alluding to something else? Perhaps they are celebrating that their god is not an impotent god?
Jesus walks into a motel, gives the innkeeper three giant nails and asks, “Can you please put me up for the night?”
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Jesus dies and goes up to Heaven. The first thing he does is look for his father, as he has never met the man before and is curious as to what he looks like, and whether or not Jesus looks like his mother or father, etc. He looks high and low but cannot find him. He asks St. Peter “Where is my father?” But St. Peter says he doesn’t know. He asks the archangel Gabriel “Where is my father?” But Gabriel doesn’t know. He asks John the Baptist “Where is my father?” But John does not know. So he wanders Heaven, impatiently searching. Suddenly he sees out of the mist an old man coming toward him. The man is very old, with white hair, stooped over a little. “Stop!” Jesus yells. “Who are you?” “Oh, please help me, I am an old man in search of my son.” Jesus is very curious. Could this be his father? “Tell me of your son, old man.” “Oh, you would know him if you saw him. Holes in his hand where the nails used to be, he was nailed to a cross, you know…” “Father!!!!!” Screams Jesus. “Pinocchio!!!!!!!” yells the old man.
It's pretty interesting how paganism got incorporated into Christianity.
Not just paganism, but lots of other near eastern religions had little bits plucked from them to make up Christianity. Kinda like Red Green building a project.
As I stood there unshowered, in shorts and flip flops with my "I > U" t-shirt on buying a 12 pack of beer.
It amazes my how completely unaware some people can be.
back when i was in my full-time pussy-pirate mode, I used to go to services like midnight mass and sunrise service to try to spot single chicks, whom I'd try to finagle a place next to. I'd tell 'em I was returnting to church after a long hiatus, and could they help me with the liturgy?
Anne Robinson: Jesus - The dependence of telomere position effect on telomere length provides a mechanism for the modification of gene expression throughout the replicative life-span of human cells. True or false?
Jesus: Ummm... false.
Anne Robinson: That is incorrect. The correct answer is, "true". You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
Sounds like a euphemism for wake and bake or morning head.
It does but trust me it is probably what I would consider the exact opposite of either of those activities. And we all know everything has opposites as Uenga told us the other day.
Honestly, not the best picture of Mjolnir. The handle should be way shorter, demonstrating that it's more of a throwing hammer than a swinging hammer. Really, a simple claw hammer is far better when working with nails.
Rev, I have it on good Aauthority that the boys are going to open the tour tonight with Here Comes Peter Cottontail. (You have to admit there's something familiar about that auto-wah.)
You heard it here first.
Daughter, home from college asks, why aren't we doing any easter stuff? My reply, all of us including her being recent vegas, which part? The boiled easter eggs? The overcooked ham? The polish sausage? The milk chocolate eggs? The gelatin peeps?... tough holiday for vegans.
So we sat around the table, drank coffee and had a nice conversation. Best easter ever.
Nah, that's just what the PR people claim. The body went missing, a B-rate horror actor went and scared a handful of losers, and after some sloppy but persistent editing, a legend was started.
Jesus and Moses are playing golf. There is a notorious water hazard on seven. Moses pulls out his nine iron.
"What? You're not going to drive over the pond?" asks Jesus.
Moses answers, "Not on your life. Nobody can clear the water from here."
"Arnold Palmer cleared it from this very spot. Twice." asserted Jesus.
Moses takes his shot and lays up just short of the water. A nice shot. Then Jesus uses his driver and the ball drops dead in the middle of the hazard. The two walk silently to the waters edge. Moses stops next to his ball while Jesus walks out on the water searching for his.
Another player approaches Moses and asks, "Who does that guy think he is? Jesus Christ?"
Moses, slowly shaking his head answers, "No. He thinks he's Arnold Palmer."
*Happy Easter. Fertility and Chocolate and Bacon to all*
There once was a god with a hammer
Who had a wee problem with grammar
His language, it seems
Only fat ladies sing
What he wants is a Nordic def jammer!
A co-worker of mine mentioned that the mall nearby is closed today for Easter & said it surprised her since, "American's are so anti-religion. Why would the mall pay service to God like that when all the religion-bashers probably just want to shop?" I suggested that it rather had something to do with the economy, something to do with many of the mall's stores being closed for good anyway. She was unconvinced. How could anyone believe this country is anti-religion?? And we live squarely in the Bible Belt, for fuck's sake.
I pulled up the latest Pew data and it surprised her. Ugh.
This is bunny decapitation (and devour) day. You could be at serious risk of a nasty accident: You don't taste of chocolate and your remains are liable to choke someone. And you'll never get your FINISHED.
Yes, I know it's supposed to be chocolate bunny decapitation day (and chocolate bunnys are not, in general, pink, large, or animate), but some people aren't that careful—especially after a few beers or getting high on bacon.
Of course, Jesus rose from the dead. But then, Thor never got dead in the first place. Still a net win for Thor.
But let us not forget that Odin was nailed to a tree for nine days and nights rather than a mere three (?). Not sure if that counts as dying and coming back to life or not. He did it willingly to earn wisdom, along with sacrificing an eye for knowledge.
Sunday morning, Thor stumbles, hungover down the halls of Valhalla. He sees a demigoddess but remembers her not, as distinctly as possible he proclaims "I'm Thor!, God of thunder!". She opens an eye halfway. Taking a deep breath, he bellows, "Im Thor!, God of thunder!". She replies, "You're thore?, I'm tho thore I can hardly pith!" (Insert rimshot)
One of Ireland's most senior clergyman admitted yesterday that an imminent report on the sexual abuse of children by clergy will shock the country and reveal that thousands of children were abused by priests.
In an unprecedented homily for Holy Thursday, Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, warned that the depth of the abuse "will shock us all".
The report from the commission on child sexual abuse will be published in May, and according to Martin it will throw up challenges to the Catholic church in Ireland it has never experienced before.
Color me surprised...
But there is good news too:
He also illuminated the recruitment crisis in Irish Catholicism, in a country that once used to export its priests and nuns all over the world. "In the [Dublin] diocese there are 10 times more priests over 70 than under 40. In just a few years we will only have a little over 200 diocesan priests to minister to our almost 200 parishes."
"But let us not forget that Odin was nailed to a tree for nine days and nights rather than a mere three (?). Not sure if that counts as dying and coming back to life or not. He did it willingly to earn wisdom, along with sacrificing an eye for knowledge. "
Odin does all that earn wisdom, while Jehovah punishes all mankind for daring to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. That almost tells you all you need to know right there.
Said the Lord, "I do not often get
Down to Earth, because once on a bet
I had an affair
With a Jewish girl there,
And they're talking about it all yet."
Patti Smith is all kinds of awesome, but "very cute"? (A little reminder of the meaning of that word.)
I saw her play in Birmingham, Alabama in 1979...the local frat boys were being "punks" by wearing skinny ties and Yankees caps, and Patti had to be physically dragged off stage by Birmingham cops as she made horrible noise on a clarinet...good times.
Hide Witch hide, the good folk come to burn thee;
They hide their keen enjoyment, behind a perfect mask of duty.
There are no “gods”, only fairy tales. Fantasies to explain away the dark, justify sex with young children, and profit. You really don’t think the witch doctor really believes that tossing a virgin in a volcano will make it rain, do you? Nooo… tossing a virgin in a volcano keeps him in his cushy witch doctor gig, with the additional perk of spending a few quality end of life hours with the virgin – what…!? you thought the virgin, stoned to the bone on Ambien, Prozac, and Viagra and smiling all the way to the bottom, was still a virgin when the witch doctor tossed ‘em in? I’ve got some property to sell. Ocean-front. Cheap. Cash only, in small bills. You’ll love Idaho!
Recalling that in all legend lay a kernel of fact, reading the fabrications koran, bible, and torah in larger, historical context with other fabrications lain down in stone it is in fact quite easy to afford “Intelligent Design” a measure of credibility. When chariots with wheels of fire flitting about, vast arks propelling the seeds of life across vast empty spaces, and fathers asking of their wives “be this my son, or that of a “giant?” are lain aside the physical record it isn’t all that far fetched to supposit that at some point in the past half-million years extra-terrestrial travelers – for whatever reason: pure science, sheer boredom, desperate survival, or profit – genetically interfered with the development of the proto-humans they found roaming the savannahs of Northern and Western Africa. Not only are we but fleas agitating the hide of a far greater organism, but some bastard’s abandoned science project, if not cattle, as well. Wrap the twelve percent of your brain you use around that.
This notion that the bastard is going to come back and rescue us… that as the blood of our adolescent squabbles over whose imaginary dog has the bigger dick rises to the horses’ bridle will come floating down out of the sky on a white horse with a thousand angels to carry away the chosen few, the faithful… Who are these “Chosen People”, these “faithful”? The genetically purest cattle (or pigs, as it is)? More accurately: just who do they think they are? Get this straight, these “Chosen People”, these “faithful”, can destroy the world – burn the forests, chop down the mountains, turn the air we breath into toxic gas and waters we drink into vast garbage reservoirs… can
drop their fucking bombs and burn the screaming babies
and at the last moment, the moment the world is utterly destroyed, after the bloodbath, some spectral being with whom they’ve entered into some kind of “special” contractual obligation is going to float down out of the sky and carry them away.
Uh-huh. To what?
Far the more likely thousands upon thousands of cavernous spacecraft, vast slaughter-houses piloted by ravenous vaguely reptilian creatures, replete with horns and folked tail, intent not as benevolent overseers of the demise of this world and our current iteration in human evolution and our children’s evolution onto the next iteration of humanity but as ravenous reptilian creatures… you know, hungry lizards. We did, afterall, invite them to “Come Eat!”
Though I often despair of humanity, seeing the mass as that of maggots: a few will evolve and escape as flies, the vast majority will consume the host and die, we as a species, the human species, as a “race”, the human race, today stand at a cusp, an iteration, in the evolution, in the maturing, of humankind. But if we don’t abandon - outgrow - this irrational dependency on adolescent fairytales and attendant adolescent squabbles over whose imaginary dog has the bigger dick… we may very well not survive at all. And while Americans certainly enjoy the “right” to believe whatever fairytale it is chosen to be believed, we are equally free not to believe in fairytales, and leave me remind you of Ben Franklin’s admonishment that “‘rights’ end with the tip of [the] nose”. There is no inherent “right” to impose such nonsense on me, or mine, nor is there any “right”, “divine” or otherwise, to destroy the world my grandchildren are growing up in… in the name of some dog. To do so will result, “right”fully so, in short order and at my hand, in instruction in the difference between prey, and prayer.
Rather than beating of breasts and wailing on street corner, far better to do as Jesus said: put it in the closet.
[Originally published at Homeless on the High Desert Sunday 12 April 2009(pig-era) as a part of the Easter Blogswarm Against Theocracy, an international Internet protest of the imposition of religion upon government, and The People. Lyrics (blockquote) Paul Kantner, 1969. Thomas Ware – Ten Bears (O’Owlish Amenheh) – is a local “witch doctor” who would gleefully toss a virgin in a volcano… if he could find one. Sadly, unlike others… the witch doctorin’ business isn’t as profitable as it once was.]
The rest of us should celebrate on these holidays that we can laugh at the religious and critique how fallacious their beliefs are and not be killed for it.
I agree - same with me. I also don't like the Hallmark Holidays - you know the sort: only love your parents one day a year. I'm also very generous and people I know receive gifts when appropriate, but virtually never on birthdays or on any god-days. Some are corpora vile though and dare complain that they received no gift on day X despite the fact they have received so much over the years. Hallmark poisons peoples' minds.
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes,
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses,
And whats with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies!
Kids keep asking: why the bunnies? why the eggs? how is this related to Easter?
The rabbit and the egg were the symbols of the celtic/germanic fertility goddes Eostre, whose feast was -- coincidentally celebrated in April around the equinox. Her feast was a pretty good piss-up and doubtless led to lots of worshipping in the bushes. "Eostre" was pronounced "Easter" but that's also coincidence, to be sure.
When the christians came 'round they co-opted it. Typical. And they spoiled the party. Also typical.
Surprised this one hasn't come up yet: Buddy, I don't care who your father is; you drop that cross one more time and you're out of the fucking procession.
A Chinese woman once asked me what Easter eggs and bunnies had to do with Easter. I had to smile because few religionists ever give it a thought.
Oestre, from whom we get the word Easter, was the pagan goddess of the dawn, hence sunrise services. She was also a fertility goddess, and eggs and bunnies are fertility symbols. They, like the Chistmas tree are vestigial remnants of more natualistic religions.
A Chinese woman once asked me what Easter eggs and bunnies had to do with Easter. I had to smile because few religionists ever give it a thought.
Oestre, from whom we get the word Easter, was the pagan goddess of the dawn, hence sunrise services. She was also a fertility goddess, and eggs and bunnies are fertility symbols. They, like the Chistmas tree are vestigial remnants of more natualistic religions.
You are deluding yourself. Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays. This is such a common, blatant error--I am truly curious as to why would it give you a sense of superiority to assume that you know this but we don't? Pop psychology would suggest that you must be very insecure. In truth, it just makes you look really, really dumb to us.
Spare a thought for us in the southern hemisphere who are heading into autumn not spring. It’s enough to make you kill and eat a bunny (which are pests down this way).
And everyone spare a thought for those of us in New Zealand who can’t, BY LAW, buy alcohol on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. Bloody xtians!
Thanks for reminding me. The answer is Stupidity Tries by Elliott Smith.
And so I go from floor to floor
Looking for a port of call
Another drunk conquistador
Conquering the governors ballhere to see him playing it on Letterman.
I agree - same with me. I also don't like the Hallmark Holidays - you know the sort: only love your parents one day a year. I'm also very generous and people I know receive gifts when appropriate, but virtually never on birthdays or on any god-days. Some are corpora vile though and dare complain that they received no gift on day X despite the fact they have received so much over the years. Hallmark poisons peoples' minds.
ditto. something about being expected to give gifts (and even be told what you're supposed to give) sort of kills the whole concept of gift-giving. both my boyfriend and I generally only give gifts as a surprise at random times. it's much more fun that way. except on the boyfriend's birthday, because I like making birthday cake :-)
The God who was "nailed to the cross" rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father. The God with the hammer is a false God. Any questions?
Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays.
"Us" being who exactly? Do you honestly think a majority of Christians in the US know that Easter was named after a pagan god? Heck, do you honestly think a majority of US Christians could even tell you what "pagan" means? When I was a Catholic in Texas, I can guarantee you that not one in ten of the believers I knew could tell you anything about the pagan roots of Christian holidays.
The God who was "nailed to the cross" rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father. The God with the hammer is a false God. Any questions?
The God who was "nailed to the cross" rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father. The God with the hammer is a false God. Any questions?
lots. for starters, "how can you tell which one is real and which one is fake?"
at least thunder and lightning are real, can't say the same for resurrections.
rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father.
So, is that why there's always a fresh supply of god-gibbets for the cannibal faithful? Does he sit at the right hand of the father so he can just lean over and stick a fork or a straw in whenever he's peckish?
You are deluding yourself. Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays. This is such a common, blatant error--I am truly curious as to why would it give you a sense of superiority to assume that you know this but we don't? Pop psychology would suggest that you must be very insecure. In truth, it just makes you look really, really dumb to us.
We know, heddle, everybody looks really really dumb to you. You have no other mode of address. So, it must be obvious to you too, that dead and resurrected gods are a dime a dozen, so the story of dead and resurrected Jesus is no less a plagiarism than any other holiday.
So, how about it, heddle, are you going to teach science to Alan Clarke, and get him to admit his creationism just makes Christians look as stupid as you insist they are not, because only smart theists like you can do that while dumb as bricks atheists can't? Or are you just going to continue to behave like the cranky holier-than-thou jerk taking regular dumps here, as usual?
Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays.
Are you serious? The majority of Christians know virtually nothing about their own religion, let alone those their organisation - created to worship someone they call 'the prince of peace' - destroyed as its adherents forced it on the unwilling under pain of death and torture.
Consider these results from various surveys...a. Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospelsb. Many professing Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciplesc. 60 percent of Americans can't name even five of the Ten
Commandmentsd. 82 percent of Americans believe "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible versee. 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wifef. A survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wifeg. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham.
Yeah, Christians are really well-informed about their religion...
You are deluding yourself. Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays.
I've found the opposite actually; that many Christians are genuinely surprised that these holidays have pagan origins. Though I think it's just out of general ignorance, it's not like the church goes around advertising the fact.
Then heddle and his stunningly sophisticated Christians must also regard the gospels are wall-to-wall bricolage, a record of plundered mythological tropes from one end of the Silk Road to the other, with the serial numbers only occasionally filed off.
why would it give you a sense of superiority to assume that you know this but we don't?
I'll just assume you know you're deluding yourselves every bit as much as we do.
Y'know on Stargate SG-1 ... Thor is this little grey alien dude... who helps out O'Neill and the others ... but he does project a hologram of himself and the big hammer wielding dude we all know and love!
Thor was a great friend to the people... he brought the rains, and died a warriors death battling the Midgard Serpent at Ragnarock!
All hail Thor... God of Thunder (and Rock and Roll)!
Are you serious? The majority of Christians know virtually nothing about their own religion,
Bullshit.
True, I have no idea what percentage of Christians know about the co-opting of pagan festivals for Christian holidays—I suspect, as this falls in the common knowledge category, that it would be roughly the same as the percentage of unbelievers who know. Although the evidence on here, circumstantially, plus anecdotally, is that it is higher. That is—I rarely meet a Christian, other than a child learning for the first time, who was surprised or gave it a second thought. While on this site you routinely have pinheads presenting the information as if it were some recent anthropological discovery that very few people knew—an not knowing that something you know is common knowledge, and presenting it like a juicy nugget of new information, is a form of ignorance.
But on here, many like to argue stereotypes, particularly the stereotype of the dumb, buck-toothed, mouth breathing Christian who knows nothing about his own religion. (Often augmented with too-good-to-be-true anecdotes (that is, fantasies) about how with one zinging question from their vast knowledge base: You didn’t know Christmas was a pagan holiday, did you? they leave Christians speechless as the turn and strut away in victory.)
This stereotype is no more accurate that other stereotypes such as: amoral, hedonistic atheists; promiscuous, child-molesting homosexuals; or those applied to African Americans or Moslems. That is the playground of more than a few on Pharyngula, and that is the intellectual company they like to keep. It is the province of ignoramuses.
Kel,
it's not like the church goes around advertising the fact.
Are you kidding? You haven’t been to many churches have you? I can’t tell you how many sermons I have heard telling parishioners to avoid those aspects of the holidays carried over from pagan festivals. Why do you think Christians would be surprised to learn that the Christmas trees and the eggs and bunnies were vestiges of preexisting festivals? Do you believe that we teach kids in Sunday School that the toddler Jesus went on easter egg hunts?
We had an Iranian housemate back in the day; we all spent good times in mutual cultural explication. (Much of it involved cooking.) We were trying to explain the Easter regalia and things went swimmingly till we got to the bunny.
The American writer David Sedaris has a funny essay about his time in a French class in Paris as he and his fellow students try to get across the concept of Easter, in fractured French, to a skeptical Moroccan immigrant ("He call his self Jesus, and then he be die one day on two . . . morsels of . . . lumber") -- made worse for Sedaris when it turns out that his French teacher has never heard of the Easter Bunny, either.
The French, it turns out, have an Easter Bell, which flies in from Rome. It's all frickin' hilarious.
(You can find the story, "Jesus Shaves", in his book Holidays on Ice.)
Why are people here talking as if Ragnarök was something that supposedly happened in the past? It is exactly like Revelations-- an event supposed to take place in the future, with the outcome already ordained by the Fates.
The survivor of Ragnarok, btw, is Baldur, the son of Odin (god of war) who will bring peace, wisdom and prosperity. He died, run through with a bough of mistletoe, and stays with Hel until the gates of the underworld open and Heimdall sounds his horn.
One end times tends to sound pretty much like another, except that Baldur's reign sounds like it's probably better than the dictator-Jesus post Armageddon.
One end times tends to sound pretty much like another, except that Baldur's reign sounds like it's probably better than the dictator-Jesus post Armageddon.
I dunno; after the Rapture a heck of a lot of dumbass Christians would be gone; it could only be better for their absence.
I have no idea what percentage of Christians know about the co-opting of pagan festivals for Christian holidays—I suspect, as this falls in the common knowledge category, that it would be roughly the same as the percentage of unbelievers who know.
I would suspect that the vast majority of people, i.e., the ones who never read a book after leaving school, know nothing about the co-opting of pagan festivals. They may have heard that Christmas was originally a solstice festival but Easter?
Easter's in the Bible, man. Them pagans had nothing to do with Easter. The gospels describe the whole Easter thing from the Last Supper to the resurrection. Yeah, the Last Supper was a Passover meal, but Jesus and the Apostles were Jews. Passover originated in Exodus, the whole Jews escaping from Egypt thing. Nothing pagan there.
I think heddle's understanding of what most Christians know is a bit of wishful thinking.
Are you kidding? You haven’t been to many churches have you? I can’t tell you how many sermons I have heard telling parishioners to avoid those aspects of the holidays carried over from pagan festivals.
I guess our experiences are different. I've scarcely met a Christian who has understood where the traditions came from and how they've been adapted. I've even been told by a Christian that anyone who isn't Christian shouldn't be allowed to celebrate Christmas or Easter because those are religious holidays.
I'm not doubting your experience at all btw. Just saying that if there is a strong focus on the pagan roots of tradition, it's not something well advertised or well-known here. Hell, we are talking about people who use that there are 7 days in a week as proof of the bible's accuracy so I really don't hold much hope for a lot of general people. If they can believe that the world is 6000 years old and that humans were hand-crafted from dirt, then what chance does a historian have in convincing them otherwise?
What need does an atheist have for knowledge of Christianity? If the proportion of Christians who know little about their own religion is equal to that of what non-Christians know about it then the Christians are ignorant.
It's like saying that because local children in Darfur can't read English it's okay if local children in Skokie, Illinois* can't read English. It's not.
Did you even go to the site I linked to? Here it is again:
It's a Christian site, bemoaning biblical illiteracy, with information obtained by actual surveys taken by Christians.
You're an academic; do you live in a college town? If so, did you ever stop to think that perhaps your congregation might possess above-average levels of scholarship?
Is the Christianity of a person suspect if they, in fact, do not know that all of its festivals are 'borrowed' from other cultures? Does Christianity require scholarship? Are you required to pass some kind of history of Christianity test before you're admitted to a congregation?
Anecdotal, but I'll mention it anyway: I work with a person, a Christian, who was surprised when she found out that Buddhism and Christianity weren't the same thing. This same person tried to tell me that she wasn't a Protestant, she was an Episcopalian.
If I were to come up to you and say 'I am a Christian', would you require anything else of me to accept that claim other than my word? No, you wouldn't. Indepth knowledge is not a requirement; hell, for most of them it's the only reason they are Christians - because if they knew - or had to know - much more about it beyond the happy-clapping, sanctimonious hypocrisy and Pascal's Wager, they wouldn't bother.
Wake up, heddle. Just because you can tell your Jesus' ass from his elbow doesn't mean all of you co-religionists can.
Bullshit indeed.
*I picked this for no reason other than it's a town in the US I know the name of; I have no knowledge of low literacy amongst its children. If this causes any residents of Skokie, Illinois any distress I apologise.
I have no idea what percentage of Christians know about the co-opting of pagan festivals for Christian holidays
But you said you did -- "Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays". Folks here have hard data on what Christians actually know -- do you have any contradictory surveys? Or will you just man up and admit that, in this particular instance, you were relying on personal opinion and anecdotal evidence that is not supported by more formally collected data (or, in other words, you were talking out of your ass)?
Are you kidding? You haven’t been to many churches have you? I can’t tell you how many sermons I have heard telling parishioners to avoid those aspects of the holidays carried over from pagan festivals.
This doesn't sound right. The crypto* Southern Baptist church near me sent out junk mail invitations. There is a sunrise service and two Easter egg hunts. The kids will probably also get a chocolate bunny or two. Oestre, is the goddess of dawn and fertily, all straight paganism. Not that there is anything wrong with it.
If you throw out the pagan aspects, the xmas tree, reindeer, lights, bunnies, eggs, and even the date of xmas all go out the window. Virtually no one has bothered.
They did change Halloween to a Harvest celebration but they still have carved pumpkins and candy.
* They call themselves a "Community church" but really have links to Southern Baptists. They tend to hide that name out here on the WC. It is bad marketing these days for a religion.
Echo what others said. Most fundies are profoundly ignorant of xianity which is why their version looks 180 degrees askew from the older protestant ones. The Rapture Freaks are the worst. Most Rapture ideation is a modern made up invention. To take one example, the only people leaving early are "144,000 male Jewish virgins" according to Revelations. Going to be hard even finding that number these days. Who in the hell wants to be a virgin, average age will probably be about 10.
This is a stupid criterion anyway. What is so good about being a virgin? Maybe they are too young, or ugly, or gay, or hate women, or are too shy and busy playing Dungeons and Dragons to meet women.
He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: 3"Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God." 4Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.
5From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,
from the tribe of Gad 12,000,
6from the tribe of Asher 12,000,
from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000,
from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000,
7from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,
from the tribe of Levi 12,000,
from the tribe of Issachar 12,000,
8from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,
from the tribe of Joseph 12,000,
from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.
Revelations 14:
Revelation 14
The Lamb and the 144,000
1Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. 2And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. 3And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. 5No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.
All those Rapture Monkeys sitting around in a daze waiting for god to show up and take them away are going to be disappointed. Only 144,000 are leaving early, Jewish, Xian male virgins. I doubt there are that many in the world today, since most Jews don't believe in "the Lamb".
What a stupid way to waste your life, believing something made up recently based vaguely on someone's drug trip 2,000 years ago. If this isn't wacko ignorance, what is?
What need does an atheist have for knowledge of Christianity? If the proportion of Christians who know little about their own religion is equal to that of what non-Christians know about it then the Christians are ignorant.
I didn't say that atheists know as much about, say, Christian Theology as Christians--they clearly do not. The co-opting of festivals is not a theological question--it is a rather mundane well-known historical fact. It's something you learn in school. Saying that the percentage of Christians who know this is to first order the same as the percentage of atheists (I actually suspect it is higher, for reasons mentioned) is like saying to first order each group knows more or less equally well who the first president was or who the current Secretary of State is.
Wake up, heddle. Just because you can tell your Jesus' ass from his elbow doesn't mean all of you co-religionists can.
You need to wake up. Just because it's kind of fun to assume most Christians are dummies doesn't make it so. Yes it makes the job of criticizing them much easier--but it is no better and just as anit-intellectual as the stereotypes of atheists that you encounter on fundie forums. Have you been to them? You get exactly the same kind of arguments and anecdotes that you often see here. He he. I said to this stupid atheist X, Y and Z--his jaw dropped to the ground! It was great! Ooh, I love to hit atheists with this argument--they never know how to respond! They never know how to explain why if eveolution is true why don't all the strong people kill all the weak--it's so fun to watch them squirm! Many of the arguments Christianity and about Christians on this site are of equivalent caliber.
And I am not the exception--I am not exceptionally knowledgeable about my faith--fairly average, I would guess.
Tulse,
That's right--in my experience of the Christians I encounter very rarely is any adult Christian surprised regarding pagan influences. It's simply common knowledge. That said, I don't know what the percentage is. Is it 85, 90? 95? I don't know. That is not inconsistent.
Folks here have hard data on what Christians actually know
Hard data my ass. I read that survey, which contained no methodology, and did not compare Christians to a control group of atheists. And it was clearly a combination of multiple surveys, mostly questions asked of Americans....
From the survey:
a. Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels
b. Many professing Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples
c. 60 percent of Americans can't name even five of the Ten Commandments
d. 82 percent of Americans believe "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse
e. 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife
f. A survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife
g. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham
Of these only b indicates "professing" Christians (whatever that means--but it certainly is much broader than, say, church-going Christians) was the group questioned. Each of the others asked "Americans" or "High School Graduates" or "Adults"
In short, this survey is designed to show biblical illiteracy in America not specifically among practicing Christians. It is a survey that will be used as a weapon in the culture war. It doesn't support what you claim it supports. Not even close. It was a grasp that was hoped offered support--but doesn't withstand even a cursory evaluation.
Go to a church and survey Christians who attend church regularly. None, except perhaps for the disabled, will answer that "Joan of Arc" was Noah's wife. None. Give me a friggin' break.
That said, biblical illiteracy is a problem, much like garden variety illiteracy is. As America dumbs down, Christians and atheists alike are getting dumber.
Or will you just man up and admit that, in this particular instance, you were relying on personal opinion and anecdotal evidence that is not supported by more formally collected data (or, in other words, you were talking out of your ass)?
When you man up and admit that your argument is equivalent to racists stating blacks are lazy or dumber than whites and asians.
One church is too many. A church with heddle in it is too ludicrous to think about. Probably wears a lab coat with his Sunday School vestments. Otherwise, cathedrals are a waste of perfectly good architecture, while the ones in which heddle is likely to lurk are an affront to it.
As for the intelligence of the average Christian, the funniest opening for HBO's 6 Feet Under ever was this one: death by rapture.
I didn't say that atheists know as much about, say, Christian Theology as Christians--they clearly do not.
Atheists clearly know more about theology than Christians, because the way it works with intelligent Christians is that the more they learn about Christianity, the more likely they are to become atheists. Look up the word apostate heddle, you clown.
OK, so that's several sources that indicate lack of basic familiarity by Christians. In many cases these were specifically given to believers, and not to the general public (which, of course, overwhelmingly self-identifies as Christian in the US).
Unless you have actual data that contradicts this, your assertions are simply not supported. At the very least admit that, and admit that your views are coloured by your own personal experience and knowledge and aren't an objective assessment of the question.
The first link. What was the quiz--and how do the results compare to a control group of atheists? After all, that is the question here--the oft-repeated claim that atheists know more about Christianity than Christians do. As I said in my previous post, biblical illiteracy is indeed a problem. But does the first link show that atheists know more that Christians about Christianity? It does not.
Ditto for the second link. Nothing to back up any claim that atheists know Christianity better. And nothing in either link to support the theory that Christians are not aware of the pagan festival roots of the customs of Christmas and Easter.
The third link (not counting the survey report) didn't work for me, kept getting a Network Timeout, but the text you providided large numbers of Americans... again speaks to a national biblical illiteracy.
So this statement you make
OK, so that's several sources that indicate lack of basic familiarity by Christians. In many cases these were specifically given to believers, and not to the general public (which, of course, overwhelmingly self-identifies as Christian in the US).
do not support your claims. If you find a survey that indicates that a randomly selected group of self-identified Christians scored lower on a quiz of biblical knowledge than a randomly selected group of atheists, that would be something. And if you find one that indicates a group of church-going Christians scored lower than a group of atheists, then you'll have a strong case. But you have not even found the weaker.
All you have found are reports suggesting that religious types are appalled with the lack of knowledge of the bible, even among Christians--which is hardly surprising.
Meh. The majority of everyone, everywhere, is ignorant. So I agree with heddle *grumble* that the initial claim took the form of a backslapping stereotype of poor, dumb Christians, which is patronizing, self-congratulatory, looks bad, and is a tactical error.
However, this And I am not the exception--I am not exceptionally knowledgeable about my faith--fairly average, I would guess.
I do not buy.
Dude, you maintain an apologetics blog. You read Hebrew and Biblical Greek. That is far above the average level of scholarship for a lay Christian.
the oft-repeated claim that atheists know more about Christianity than Christians do
--is supported daily on these pages by the way Christian apostates who have become atheists stomp all over the theistic science denialists who stump into the Pharyngula Saloon to teach us heathens whut's whut, the same ignoramuses whose nonsense heddle never, ever, challenges.
the theory that Christians are not aware of the pagan festival roots of the customs of Christmas and Easter.
When did this morph from observation to theory?
Gallup does a lot of these surveys that heddle just can't wrangle his multiple thumbs on a browser to locate. They're the ones monitoring the steep decline in the number of Christians who read the Bible daily, if at all (hurray!). Christianity is more often inherited uncritically and unexamined, than adopted after rigorous comparison shopping among all world-views. Don't think about it too hard heddle, or you'll have to get even madder at us when you can no longer cling so tenaciously to your fairy tales.
how do the results compare to a control group of atheists? After all, that is the question here
No it isn't -- I at least have been very clear that the issue was your claim that, and I quote, "Most of us [i.e., Christians] are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays". That was the claim I was challenging, not that atheists are somehow better informed than Christians on this matter, or on matters of the bible in general. The issue of atheists' knowledge is completely irrelevant to the issue of Christians' knowledge about the roots of their own religion, and it is this latter issue to which the various surveys I noted speak.
Again, you've provided no data whatsoever to back up your notion that Christians are well-informed about their own religion and the origins of its holidays. The surveys I've pointed to are not ideal, but they certainly are strongly suggestive that the deep knowledge you appear to claim for them simply doesn't exist. If you want to present some alternative data, go right ahead -- you presumably can use Google as well as the rest of us. But until there is some other hard evidence, your claim is just your opinion, an opinion that is opposed by empirical research.
No it isn't -- I at least have been very clear that the issue was your claim that, and I quote, "Most of us [i.e., Christians] are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays". That was the claim I was challenging,
OK, If you want to confine it to the narrow question of pagan origins of Christmas/Easter customs, then the surveys you linked are worse than "not ideal" (which is already a generous assessment.) They are totally meaningless, since none ask that question or anything close. You have no data pertaining to that particular question--and neither do I. Nor would I expect to, since it is common knowledge. Your anecdotal(generically--i.e. Pharyngula commenters) data seem to consist of encounters with random Christian bumpkins right out of central casting. Like the atheist cartoons of fundie forums. My anecdotal data come from, oh, on the order of a few thousand Christians who, over the years, I have attended sermons with, where the pastor has pointed out, as a warning, those aspects of Christian holidays that have nothing to do with Christ but were co-opted for convenience and expediency.
If you want to confine it to the narrow question of pagan origins of Christmas/Easter customs, then the surveys you linked are worse than "not ideal"
So you think that individuals' would be less likely to know about basic aspects of the Bible (such as whether Paul was in the Old Testament, and whether Jesus wrote any of the Gospels) that about the pagan connection to Christian holidays? Honestly?
You have no data pertaining to that particular question
Agreed -- there are no surveys I could find in my cursory search that address that particular issue directly. But, as noted above, I think the data that does exist is certainly strongly suggestive.
and neither do I.
Which, of course, was my point.
Nor would I expect to, since it is common knowledge.
Which, of course, is precisely the issue under debate. To simply re-assert this claim gets you nowhere.
Your anecdotal(generically--i.e. Pharyngula commenters) data seem to consist of encounters with random Christian bumpkins right out of central casting.
No, it comes from about 20 years of being Catholic in Texas, including going to parochial school and Catholic high school. I'm not clear why I should take my experiences as any less valid than yours.
In any case, I'm really not interested in going back and forth on this. If you really want to believe what you believe about the knowledge Christians have, that's fine. But I think we both agree that ultimately this is an empirical question, and while you have your experiences, I have mine and data that I think speaks to the issue. So unless you also have some hard empirical evidence, you're simply not going to convince me.
So unless you also have some hard empirical evidence, you're simply not going to convince me.
Not my intent to convince you of anything. My intent, as always on this site, is, when people are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures, to point out they are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures.
The bar is already ludicrously low for the subject of apologetics: chapbooks for the marks to turn to when "la-la-la" fails to drown out the faint but nagging voice of reason. Apologetics strives to turn even the most nagging case of cognitive dissonance into multi-part harmony.
My intent, as always on this site, is, when people are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures, to point out they are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures, says heddle, arguing against a simpleminded, self-serving caricature of atheists arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures.
Intent is one thing, but what heddle's consistent contributions here provide instead is the slow-burn exasperation of Edgar Kennedy, as his hat is set on fire and his lemonade stand pissed into. And he keeps coming back for more!
If Xians are so aware that the winter solstice was a pagan festival and has nothing to do with the reported time of birth, why is there all the hoo ha about keeping it just for themselves and not allowing a greeting of Happy Holidays? Why do they keep the pagan trees and Celtic trappings?
Why don't you all just move your holiday back where it belongs and leave us to our Yule logs and Grog?
Are you talking about the war on Christmas? If so you are making a common mistake: to assume that those that make a great deal of noise represent the majority. They don't. That would be like my assuming most atheists are like, say Holbach or Nerd of the Redhead. They aren't.
And it's actually not our holiday. The bible doesn't instruct us to celebrate Jesus' birth. We are to celebrate his death. Most people I know do not care one way or another whether a WalMart greeter says Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or Splendiferous Kwanzaa. In my family, we celebrate Christmas as a pagan holiday, acknowledging that it has little to to with Christianity.
Also, the war on Christmas noise is not made, for the most part, by those who are fighting, in a misguided way, for Christianity per se. It is made by those fighting the culture war. Fighting the culture war and defending the faith are not only not the same thing--they are, in my opinion, antithetical.
And it's actually not our holiday. The bible doesn't instruct us to celebrate Jesus' birth. We are to celebrate his death. Most people I know do not care one way or another whether a WalMart greeter says Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or Splendiferous Kwanzaa. In my family, we celebrate Christmas as a pagan holiday, acknowledging that it has little to to with Christianity.
Calvin was, if I'm not mistaken, extremely suspicious of Christmas as a religious holiday. Most Christian sects that aren't Calvinist don't have that issue (with the exception of sects like the Jehovah's Witnesses). The fact that Calvinists are especially sensitized to the issue of the origin and appropriateness of traditional Christian holidays suggests that "most people you know" in a religious sense may not be all that representative of Christianity at large.
And it's actually not our holiday. The bible doesn't instruct us to celebrate Jesus' birth. We are to celebrate his death.
So all those church signs I see around Christmas saying "Jesus is the reason for the season" and "without Christ, there is no Christmas" are wrong? Not once have I ever seen a sign that's inclusive for other faiths or a reference to pagan history.
I ever seen a sign that's inclusive for other faiths or a reference to pagan history.
Why should they? We are not inclusive of other faiths--Christianity is very exclusive--Jesus is the only way. And why should they make a reference to pagan history?--just to convince you they know it? Tell you what, come to my church next Christmas. I bet you'll hear about the pagan aspects of Christmas.
Specifically, it invalidates heddle's claim that the pagan origin of holidays Christians celebrate is common knowledge. Heddle's claim that it's common knowledge can't be inferred, as he demands of us, just because the subject is a frequent hobbyhorse ridden in sermons in the butt-ugly cult to which he subscribes. Only heddle wants us to think his cult is representative of Christians.
Oh noes! It's the devastating misspelled name assault! Watch out, Brtiomart, and Tusle! Soon, you'll be expected to say, like me, "Alla time I say something, he no say nothing! How come a he no say nothing when I say a something?"
And yet my group is one of Time Magazines 10 ideas changing the world right now!
And so is amortality for celebutards. If heddle's stupid cult is changing the world, it certainly isn't an improvement.
En Garde!
For a minute there, I thought heddle had begun to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but that wasn't His Noodly Appendage.
Why should they? We are not inclusive of other faiths--Christianity is very exclusive--Jesus is the only way.
I'm saying that if they do know it, they don't advertise it. Again, just because your church does it, it doesn't make it very representative of society as a whole. I'd be willing to bet most people don't know the origins of Christmas, and just because your church tells it, it doesn't mean that most churches tell it.
Why should they? We are not inclusive of other faiths--Christianity is very exclusive--Jesus is the only way.
Jesus is the only way to what? Waste your life trying to make such a claim make any sort of sense?
After having stolen whatever was successfully bringing in the marks to all the other religions, Christianity declares it's the one true way. I'm very exclusive too; I exclude Christianity from serious consideration as anything better than plagiarized nonsense.
I'm with Groucho, who would never join any club that would have him as a member. I can say with little fear of error that heddle knows fuckall about any of the other religious ideas that predate, or were contemporaneous with, Christianity and its explosion into today's myriad worldwide cults, all at each others throats.
What does wanting something to be true have to do with it?
Two things. In the absence of any evidence, that's all you've got, and, in heddle's case, now we know what kind of bottom-feeder it takes to want Calvinism to be true, out of every other competing variety of religious claim which has neither more nor less evidence for any congruence with reality.
Go to a church and survey Christians who attend church regularly.
Emphasis mine.
Sure, regular church-going Christians would be biblically literate - but is it a requirement of Christianity to go to church? Does every single Christian in the world attend church a regular basis? If you are identified as not attending church on a regular basis, do you have your Christianity revoked?
This is my point, heddle. Membership of plenty of Christian congregations requires nothing more than answering 'yes' to the question 'are you a Christian?' when asked. Nothing more.
Whether or not you consider that to be Christianity is beside the point, as it describes plenty of Christians.
As a woman I'm not allowed to question Heddles authority, remember.
Of course Heddles church tells the members christmas is pagan. Calvin despised the catholics. That has little to do with what the man on the street type christian knows about their on faith or scripture knowledge.
For you to challenge what we witness here almost on a daily basis of ignorant christians as not relevant just doesn't cut it Heddle. I've been shocked at how ignorant they actually are.
but is it a requirement of Christianity to go to church? Does every single Christian in the world attend church a regular basis? If you are identified as not attending church on a regular basis, do you have your Christianity revoked?
Don't be silly. I think you knew what I meant. But that would lead us to a long discussion, which we have had many times (we not meaning you and I, but Pharyngulites and I.) That is, this is a nation of self-identified Christians, which is not the same as Christians. There are family, peer, and cultural pressures not to mention a lack of ego and self-esteem (for some) that results in many Americans claiming claiming to be Christian. The hope, which I think we share, is that the "new atheism" will work to remove any remaining stigma associated with being an atheist, so "self-identified" becomes more accurate. So, no--it is not necessarily required to attend a local church (although you can make a biblical case for it) and there are non-Christians who attend church regularly--nevertheless "regular church goers" is a more reliable set of true Christians that "self-identifying" Christians. In my opinion. And by common sense, I'd argue.
That is, this is a nation of self-identified Christians, which is not the same as Christians.
Ah, but they consider themselves Christians, the government considers them Christians, and any Christian trying to argue for the numbers of Christians as evidence of Christianity's validity, heddle - even if you don't. You're stuck with them - and their demonstrated biblical illiteracy and ignorance of Christian history whether you like it or not.
Patricia, you are right. Heddle has been leaving pile after pile.
Heddle, you can convince me your god exists as soon as you produce proper physical evidence for one. That is the proper scientific attitude. No evidence, no conclusions. I just set the bar higher than "look around you" or "look in the mirror". I need a real eternally burning bush, just like you should.
Oh, Patricia. When Heddle uses a word, it means whatever he chooses it to mean.
Take the word Christian, for example. Ordinarily, it means someone who self-identifies as a Christian. But, if Heddle so chooses, it can also mean "someone who self-identifies as a Christian and attends church with X frequency."
(What is that frequency, by the way? How many visits to church per year, for example, does it take before the number of "Christians" who will answer that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife will be "none, except perhaps for the disabled," as Heddle so confidently asserted in #176? Come to think of it, are those who attend church with the required frequency, yet are too severely disabled to understand the pagan origins of Christian holidays actually "Christians" under Heddle's definition?)
Heddle, like every other type of Christian fundie, only believes his branch of Christianity to be the real branch.
Ergo, if you are not a regular church-going person, who attends a "New Calvinist" church, where the pastor regularly goes on about how Christmas is a pagan holiday, then you aren't a "Real Christian(TM)".
So, obviously Real Christians(TM) know about pagan holidays.
Now, New Calvinists are mostly Baptists (as opposed to Neo-Calvinists, who are mainly Lutheran). Only about 1 in 5 Christians are Baptists in the US (vs, say, 1 in 3 Christians who are Catholic). Not all Baptists are New Calvinists; I don't have stats, but it's not likely to be more than 50%, otherwise there wouldn't be a separate Baptist identity to be distinguished.
Now, only about 10% of all Christians are regular church goers - even the big occasions like Easter only get in about 1/3rd. I'll give the New Calvinists bonus points for piety, and say that about 25% of New Calvinists are regular every-Sunday type church goers.
So... 20% * 50% * 25% = 1 in 40. 1 in 40 Christians would be Real Christians(TM). The other 39 in 40 are ignorant heathens who mean well but fail to worship God correctly, and are therefore going to hell - it doesn't matter what they know.
As the Rabbi said "They all worship God in their own way - I worship God in His". Meant as a joke, but it does sum up the religious viewpoint.
What does wanting something to be true have to do with it?
Without the want of it to be true, how can you keep holding it as true? Do you sit there in church wishing that total depravity and predestination weren't reality? Because both of those ideas are pretty fucked-up ways of looking at life.
I agree with you Nerd, and this is one of the reasons I can never believe again.
If gawd could walk and talk with Adam and Eve, Enoch and Moses, why can't he show up now? Why didn't he show up on 9/11 or after Katrina, the tsunami, and the earth quakes? Must be embarrassing as hell for the pope to try and explain why gawd is pissed at Italy.
Heddles religion of choice is even sicker. Check out the doctrine of total depravity.
Do you sit there in church wishing that total depravity and predestination weren't reality?
Well said Kel. So far as I can tell, heddle thinks it's fucking great that in the afterlife, there will be cake, and we will be baked. Heddle sits there in church celebrating Calvinism's total depravity and predestination.
Emmet, OM - You'll be going to hell for that little suggestion, bucko.
For verily, thou shalt not make an 11 tined manure fork, for that eth an un-natural number and an abomination. 12 tines thou may maketh, for that ith the number of our lawd.
Don't get me started on 13 tines, that's witchcraft.
The part that's really strange about total depravity and predestination is that it doesn't matter in the least how you live your life. You could be a concentration camp commandant and if you hit the lotto, you're in. Or you could give all your possessions to the poor, visit the sick every hour on the half-hour, never say a cruel word about anyone, and help little old ladies across the street in your spare time but if you're not lucky, it's the lake of fire for you.
If he truly believes in this total depravity crap I don't know how he survives
Because the reason we point and mock and scorn heddle is never because heddle is wrong; it is because of the doctrine of total depravity that we are blind to heddle's dazzling brilliance.
If I ever encounter heddle in Real Life I'll be unable to avoid going all Mr. Creosote at him.
How can beliefs like that flourish? It seems that either there has to be the desire for the belief to be true, or that the belief is tightly coupled with another belief that is desirable. If a belief has neither the desire to be true or is tightly coupled with another belief, then why would anyone want to believe it? I don't get how any Calvinist could wish total depravity or predestination to be true (or any Christian wishing for original sin) unless those beliefs are core to their belief in God. To kill one is to kill the other...
If he truly believes in this total depravity crap I don't know how he survives
That's easy. It doesn't apply to him. He's one of the Elect. He just gets too look down on the unsaved. His wealth and career success prove this to him.
you are willing, I presume, to stake your claim that most Christians you know are representative?
No, I am willing to hold my view based on the Christians I know (who are primarily Catholic, and yes, therefore more representative of "average" US Christians than Calvinist Baptists) andsurvey data.
You all notice Heddle disappears after doctrine comes up.
Two explanations for this occur to me. He has a life, such as it is (Ew!). Also, it's possible that enough of heddle's adversaries here have triggered in him sufficient cognitive dissonance that it has become necessary to consign them here to the place where you and I have been wished away to, here in the cornfield, where we who are not worthy of the scornful contemplation of the heddle most happily reside. He doesn't even have to declare victory before he scarpers; heddle's opponents merely cease to be.
Ah, but they consider themselves Christians, the government considers them Christians, and any Christian trying to argue for the numbers of Christians as evidence of Christianity's validity, heddle - even if you don't. You're stuck with them - and their demonstrated biblical illiteracy and ignorance of Christian history whether you like it or not.
Where is that written in stone? I don't have to accept someone's claim to be a Christian because the government accepts their claim. Does that even make sense to you? Mormans and JWs claim to be Christian--but I certainly do not accept their claim--nor is there some law of nature that says I have to accept it. Especially not because the government accepts it. (Curious--do you accept Dembski as a scientist? Ken Hamm? They both claim they are scientists--so are you required to accept their claim?)
Nerd,
Why should I convince you? I have no desire to try. That is impossible--and as such, it is irrational for it to be my goal. I'll present the gospel to you--but I can no more convince you that it's true than I can convince my dog that it is true.
Tis Himself,
The part that's really strange about total depravity and predestination is that it doesn't matter in the least how you live your life.
Oh brother.
It's funny how the two complaints about Calvinism (presented with the same ignorant certainty of the YEC who smugly asks: what good is half an eye? Gotcha!) are exactly opposite. Some will say, as if nobody ever considered it: that means we are just puppets while others say, again as if nobody ever thought of it before, then it doesn't matter what you do, you might as well do whatever you like -- as I mentioned, just the opposite. One complains we have no free will. The other complains that we might as well exploit our free will to the max and be libertines. Both expecting that Augustine would say: "Criminy, how come I never thought of that flaw!"
Kel,
Without the want of it to be true, how can you keep holding it as true?
Because it is true, independent of whether I want it to be true. Another example comes from the end times--I would like the Left Behind view to be true, because a rapture would be cool--but I don't think it is. So I don't claim it is true, just because I want it to be true. Is this really a problem?
Do you sit there in church wishing that total depravity and predestination weren't reality?
No I love those doctrines--I don't know how my Arminian brothers live at peace wondering if their confession was sincere enough. I think the doctrine of total depravity is the most comforting of all--knowing that the only thing I contribute to my salvation is my sin is liberating. And I agree with Spurgeon who said: "I'm so glad God chose me before the foundation of the world, rather than waiting to see how I turned out."
Because it is true, independent of whether I want it to be true.
You have no FCCing way of knowing it to be true, demonstrating it to be true, or showing that it is even FCCing reasonable to believe it is true, and yet, here you are, godbotting about it on an atheist blog and pretending that you are exactly the sort of champion of science that PZ can never be.
"I'm so glad God chose me before the foundation of the world, rather than waiting to see how I turned out."
I'm of two minds. That is either testimony that a God who would choose heddle so spend eternity with is too sociopathic to exist, or evidence that God is a coprophiliac.
Where is that written in stone? I don't have to accept someone's claim to be a Christian because the government accepts their claim. Does that even make sense to you? Mormans and JWs claim to be Christian--but I certainly do not accept their claim--nor is there some law of nature that says I have to accept it.
Because of the simple fact that their claim to 'true' Christianity is no more or less compelling than your own - or can you provide objective evidence to the contrary?
You don't want to like the fact that they interpret the material in a different way, fair enough; that's up to you. If you want to say that Calvinist Baptists of certain sects do or don't do something then that's fine, too. But don't come here arguing that 'Christians' do or don't do certain things when that demonstrably isn't the case.
Sorry, but you don't get to decide who is or isn't Christian - unless you can find a way to convince us (and, more importanly them) that you're correct and they aren't.
Wait, how does Heddle know that God has chosen him for eternal salvation? Does heddle have access to the list of who is eternally saved and who is eternally tortured? So I guess Heddle doesn't believe in a loving God - just one who likes to send people to be tortured whether they like it or not...
don't have to accept someone's claim to be a Christian because the government accepts their claim. Does that even make sense to you? Mormans and JWs claim to be Christian--but I certainly do not accept their claim--nor is there some law of nature that says I have to accept it.
No, you don't have to accept it, but the word label "Christian", as defined by society, covers them. They follow the word of Jesus Christ, as they interpret it - thus they are Christian. Even the Mormons fit in, because the scripture revealed to Joseph Smith is meant to be Jesus' scripture. Muslims do not, though they recognise Jesus as a prophet of God, because they place Mohammed higher.
You can reject that if you want, but none-the-less the label "Christian" covers them.
Do you accept Dembski as a scientist? Ken Hamm? They both claim they are scientists--so are you required to accept their claim?
No, I don't. Again, due to the social definition. To be a scientist, you have to be practising science. This is a social activity - it involves doing research, presenting theories to your peers, and supporting those theories with evidence. Dembski and Hamm both fail to do this. I'll leave the concrete examples to those readers of this blog who are scientists themselves.
... but I can no more convince you that it's true than I can convince my dog that it is true.
Ah, the smug assertion of superiority, as well as the implicit insult: "You're as dumb as my dog!". Oh, we're hurt.
All it takes to convince us is evidence, heddle. Put forth a convincing explanation of why, say, your flavour of religion is more valid than, oh, Scientology (let's make it easy for you).
While you're at it, let's put into play my new favourite touchstone of open-mindness - what evidence would it take you to abandon your faith (possibly for another faith; nobody is asking for atheism here)?
. Some will say, as if nobody ever considered it: that means we are just puppets while others say, again as if nobody ever thought of it before, then it doesn't matter what you do, you might as well do whatever you like -- as I mentioned, just the opposite.
I love how heddle whines that everyone gets total depravity and predestination wrong but he doesn't bother to explain it to us. Us iggerant heathens is too iggerant to be edjumacted about heddle's brand of irrationality. Why am I not surprised that someone as supercilious and condescending as His Highness Heddle the Great can only sneer but not teach?
When I consider this line from heddle, "knowing that the only thing I contribute to my salvation is my sin is liberating." in contrast with these:
in heaven we will have no pity and no sorrow over the lost, and will view it as just. [...]We understand theoretically that we will not be sad in heaven, but we cannot comprehend it this side of glory. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard a Christian say: "I don't see how I'll be happy in heaven when considering those who aren't there."Personally I am in a minority-I think we will be sad at times. The fact that God will wipe away our tears means, to me, that we have been crying. But that's just a guess
then I can only conclude that to heddle, heaven is a cosmic Milgram experiment, where it's OK for heddle to turn the dial past eleven on a son, or a daughter, or a beloved parent or a friend whom God has not chosen to be among The Elect, and then God will dry heddle's crocodile tears, and scoop out the last vestiges of heddle's mere humanity so heddle won't have to pretend to be sad on our behalf anymore.
Taking one last look in before saying night night...
I don't take one least bit of offense Heddle. Sorry about your luck. I spent 50 years being treated this way. I press you so that those younger than we are can see what total jerks good christian men are.
Nicely played. Don't forget this, we'll have more rounds.
Wait, how does Heddle know that God has chosen him for eternal salvation? Does heddle have access to the list of who is eternally saved and who is eternally tortured? So I guess Heddle doesn't believe in a loving God - just one who likes to send people to be tortured whether they like it or not...
Hmm... having just gone through the Wikipedia entry on Calvinism, I'd guess that Heddle knows God has chosen him because of his faith.
Let me see if I've got the logic right: based on the doctrine of Total Depravity, humans are inherently sinful and that "all people ... are morally unable to choose to follow God and be saved because they are unwilling to do so out of the necessity of their own natures".
However, God, because of His Sovereign Grace, is a merciful and loving God, and even though He would be fully justified to let all of Humanity roast in Hell forever, He has chosen to save some of us. Picked at random - after all, by definition there is nothing you can do to make yourself worthy of salvation. This is the doctrine of Unconditional Election. God picks you out, you will be saved.
Now, Jesus died for our sins, apparently, but rather than dying for everyone's sins, He only died for the elect. Not that God couldn't have had Jesus die for everyone; He's certainly powerful enough to do that, but He's just not that merciful. Hey, it's a Divine Miracle that He's letting anyone off the hook, after all. So, according to the doctrine of Limited Atonement, Jesus only died for the sins of the elect. Oh, and God knew in advance who the elect will be, so he knew exactly how much atonement would be needed.
Now, God's a powerful being, so once He elects you, you've got no choice. You can try to resist if you like, but eventually God will wear you down, and you will heed the call of the gospel and develop a "saving faith". This is the doctrine of Irresistible Grace. So the only way you can have real faith is if God makes you, because you can't do it yourself. The fact of faith is the proof that God loves you.
A nice side point here is that numerous sinners will, despite not being able to have real faith, don the trappings and lifestyle of faith, presumably to try and fool God. Thus, if someone falls away from the Faithful, it's because they were either secretly a sinner all along, or because God will call them back later. The classic "not a True Christian" argument. This is the fifth and final doctrine of Calvinism, the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints.
So, to sum up: if you have faith, you're saved. You can't have faith without God's help. If God is giving you help, you can't backslide. If you do backslide, God will bring you back, or he was never with you anyway. Oh, and if he isn't with you, you don't have faith, and you're going to Hell.
How is this not a license to do whatever you feel like? Want to rape a child? Sure, go ahead - if God's on your side, he'll fix your faith up afterwards anyway, and if he's not, what difference does it make?
To be just a little fair, Patricia - the Doctrine of Total Depravity doesn't mean you are totally and utterly sick, evil and twisted. The "total" means that it's in every part of you, but doesn't quantify how much. It seems to me to be a tarted up version of Original Sin.
It probably didn't sound quite so aggressive in the original German.
(Oh, I've changed my handle slightly to stand out from the other Roberts around the place...)
They follow the word of Jesus Christ, as they interpret it - thus they are Christian.
Sorry, no. (The bible says quite explicitly that that definition is wrong.) If someone says: "according to my interpretation of the bible, Elvis was Jesus. I believe in and follow the Elvis-Christ, therefore I am a Christian" then I am not only free but obliged to say: you are not.
No, I don't. Again, due to the social definition. To be a scientist, you have to be practising science.
So for Christians it is the individual's determination that matters: "I am a Christian, because I say I am." For a scientist, others make the determination: "You are not a scientist until we say you are a scientist." Convenient.
Well at least I'm consistent. I say someone is not a Christian if they do not exhibit evidence of being a Christian. And they are not a scientist if they do not exhibit evidence of being a scientist, regardless of what they call themselves. So I say Fred Phelps is not a Christians, and Ken Hamm is not a scientist, and don't really care if anyone takes exception.
Ah, the smug assertion of superiority, as well as the implicit insult: "You're as dumb as my dog!". Oh, we're hurt.
You missed the boat. But then, looking down, I see that you had not yet read your Wiki article and arrived at a deep understanding of Calvinism. The dog comment was not an insult. It was meant to show that any attempt to convince Nerd (or anyone else) is as hopeless as attempting to convince my dog. Not because Nerd is stupid, but because an unregenerate man cannot be convinced, regardless of his IQ.
All it takes to convince us is evidence, heddle. Put forth a convincing explanation of why, say, your flavour of religion is more valid than, oh, Scientology (let's make it easy for you).
Same for you as for Nerd. I cannot convince you that Christianity is correct and Scientology is false. There are two things I can do: 1) present the gospel. I can't convince you, just present it and answer questions. 2) As an academic exercise, I can argue that Calvinism is a supportable interpretation of the bible. That is, I can't convince you to believe the bible. But if, for the sake of argument, we assume the bible is correct, then I can argue for Calvinism as opposed to other Christian theologies.
TisHimself, #240
Why am I not surprised that someone as supercilious and condescending as His Highness Heddle the Great can only sneer but not teach?
I can teach just fine--ask me a question about Calvinistic doctrine and I'll be happy to answer. But when someone like RobertDW reads a Wikipedia entry and then asks a stupid question like: "How is this not a license to do whatever you feel like? Want to rape a child? Sure, go ahead - if God's on your side, he'll fix your faith up afterwards anyway, and if he's not, what difference does it make?" I have no more interest to answer seriously than most you would if a YEC came by and knew so little bio that he asked the famous "what good is half an eye?" question with a tone suggesting that he "knew" you didn't have an answer.
To be sure, stupid questions are fine. It's stupid questions in a gotcha! tone that I long ago learned to ignore. Perhaps I misinterpreted RobertDW's (#244) tone--but the child rape question is pretty much a dead giveaway. If someone asks, sincerely, "But doesn't Calvinism then give you license to sin as much as you like?" I'm happy to answer. As I am sure most on here would be happy to answer someone asking a sincere version of the half-an-eye question.
So if you have a question about Calvinist doctrine, ask away.
Wowbagger, OM #237
Sorry, but you don't get to decide who is or isn't Christian - unless you can find a way to convince us (and, more importanly them) that you're correct and they aren't.
Again, not written in stone. Since I consider myself a Christian, I am allowed and even required (by my reading) to draw a circle of orthodoxy (for me it is roughly the Nicene creed) and say: if either (a) you are outside that circle or (b) you are inside that circle by display no signs of the fruits of the spirit-- then in either case I will not consider you a Christian. Sorry, I might be wrong, but I'll treat you as a non-believer. Others can (and should) do the same to me.
I am not obligated to convince you that, say, JWs are not Christian. I'll try if you are interested, on the basis of the bible, but at the end if you don't agree, then too bad. There is simply no inviolate law that says if X claims to be a Christian, all others who claim to be Christian must accept X's claim uncritically.
If the bible taught what you claim, then it would have said excommunication--which amounts to rejecting people even though they claim to be Christians-- is forbidden. Instead it condones the practice, within a system of checks and balances.
If you want to say that Calvinist Baptists of certain sects do or don't do something then that's fine, too. But don't come here arguing that 'Christians' do or don't do certain things when that demonstrably isn't the case.
Some misunderstanding here. I do not think only Calvinists or Calvinist Baptists are Christians, or that all of them are Christians. But more importantly, most my time as a Christian (which I became as an adult), that is the longest run I spent in any one church, was in a non-Calvinist church where my Calvinistic views were in the minority. So my experience with what other Christians believe comes from, for the most part, fellowship with non-Calvinistic Christians. It is only recently, upon returning to Virginia, that I am in a self-described Calvinistic church. So when I say: "it would be rare for any of the thousands of Christian I have enjoyed fellowship with" to be unaware of the pagan origins of Christmas, I am mostly talking about non-Calvinists.
Heddle, my question was sincere if expressed in a tone of disgust.
How is Calvinism not a license to do what you feel like?
My logic is above. By my reading: you can't not be saved by your own actions - you need to be picked by God, and God will not pick you based on your own virtue (or sin). Without God picking you, you go to Hell. If God does pick you, then no matter what you want to do otherwise, you will ultimately end up with a perfect faith (and thus no longer _able_ to sin, presumably). Until you get to that sublime point (which is inevitable), you can backslide - God will still pick you up eventually.
So: nothing you do matters. You are saved or damned by the choice of God, and the virtue (or lack thereof) of your actions don't count. The only caveat is that when you eventually reach the state of grace, you can't sin.
What part of my logic is wrong? Bear in mind that my understanding of Calvinist doctrine is limited mostly to that Wikipedia article.
If no part of my logic is wrong, how is it not a license by God (as opposed to the social morals and constraints that bind, say, me) from doing something as bad as, oh, raping a child?
Also bear in mind that child rape has been condoned by numerous churches, particularly the Catholic church, as being doctrinally permitted in the past, so it's not an unrealistic question. Saudi culture today, backed by Islamic law, permits the "marriage" of an 8-year old girl to a 47-year old man, to cite a news story I read today.
Yes, Western social morals abhor child abuse today. But social morals are subject to change - exploitation of children 300 years ago wouldn't have raised an eyelid. Doctrinal morality should be more rigid. Nor is child rape against the Bible - in fact, it was the reward given to the soldiers of Israel. And yes, it's deliberately emotive.
If you want a less emotional sin, then how is it not an license to, say, commit embezzlement?
(Oh, and I'll be happy to answer why atheism is not a license to do what you feel like - I don't need religion to justify my morality)
How is Calvinism not a license to do what you feel like?
Actually it is, in fact in some ways it is exactly that—Calvinism has almost a libertine view of free will—but what you will feel like, if you are saved, is that you will desire to please God by glorifying him.
Let me be presumptuous and rephrase your question: How is Calvinism not a license to sin as much as like?
When the understanding of Calvinism is limited to the TULIP acrostic, then it is a fair question. A fuller understanding, not incorporated into TULIP, is that when men are regenerated they not only are given faith, they are radically changed. While still sinners, they have a desire to live for God's glory and they enjoy living for God's glory. While it is true that a saved person can commit the most horrible sins, and while it is also true that a saved person who commits horrible sins will be forgiven, it is also true that a saved person will want to please God and will enjoy pleasing God--which is incompatible with a lifestyle attitude: "why not sin to my heart's content?" Salvation comes with the promise not just of faith but also of repentance and sanctification, the latter meaning that the Holy Spirit will continue to increase one’s desire to obey God. Paul addresses this in several places in no uncertain terms. Anyone with an attitude "why not sin to my heart's content?" is displaying neither repentance, nor any sign of sanctification, nor any sign of a desire and joy to live for God's glory. In short, such a person shows no signs of being saved.
The doctrine of sanctification, and the concomitant desire to live for God's glory and to enjoy God, is not captured in the small thumbnail of the TULIP description of Calvinism.
(Oh, and I'll be happy to answer why atheism is not a license to do what you feel like - I don't need religion to justify my morality)
No need, since I don't believe that and would never ask the question. The doctrine of Common Grace (well, one of a couple doctrines under that same name) teaches that all men, believers and unbelievers, have a moral compass provided by God. So I believe atheists have morality, provided by God, and therefore have no inclination to live as hedonists.
Your god may have a hammer, but mine has lightning... :-) Coming from Greece, I would probably have put Zeus instead of Thor in that picture.
Anyway, Greek Orthodox Christian Easter is one week later. So, in my part of the world, Jeebus has not yet become a zombie.
I've always hated Good Friday especially, for two main reasons: my mom does not cook, so I always had to procure food from outside sources, and two the church bells are ringing all day... I make it a point to try and eat meat on Good Friday, just to spite every believer. I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Greece, it is considered a major sin to eat meat on Good Friday.
Good thing about Easter, and working in a company, is that I have 2 extra days off, and can sleep. (Even if that company is partly mine...)
So then, like I said: you can do what you want, but if you've been fully saved, then you won't want to sin. Ergo, if you want to sin, you're not fully saved.
Well, at least your kind presumably doesn't bother with much in the way of missionary work. After all, people can't be saved, so why bother trying?
Oh, and you want to be a little careful with your words: hedonists live a lifestyle aimed at achieving as much pleasure as possible. By your own standards, Calvinists, living to worship God and enjoying doing so, are hedonistic, as they actively try to maximise their enjoyment.
(Not that there is anything wrong with hedonism... though what some people find pleasurable may well be wrong)
All that said - this viewpoint almost exactly captures the most abhorrent and disgusting thing about religion to me: the complete and utter abdication of personal responsibility. Nothing you do counts. No act of yours can make you worthy of salvation; once you've been picked (at random), no act of yours can make you worthy of damnation. Once you achieve that state of grace, you have no conscience, because nothing you do can be sin, because you can't sin. It's all God's choice, and you are just a slave. It makes me physically sick that someone can subscribe to such a viewpoint.
The ability to observe and reason is Man's greatest gift. Christianity in particular takes this gift and makes it a curse - not for nothing is it eating from the Tree of Knowledge that gets Adam kicked out of the garden. The Enlightenment has done more for humanity than anything ever given to us by religion.
Well, at least your kind presumably doesn't bother with much in the way of missionary work. After all, people can't be saved, so why bother trying?
Perhaps counterintuitively, Calvinists are zealous for missionary work. Why? 1) Because we are under command to spread the gospel (to glorify God--leave the conversion to him) and 2) Because we enjoy spreading the gospel.
The difference with our non Calvinistic brothers is probably one of emphasis. We emphasize the message more than the response--while Arminian missionaries tend to focus on the response more than the message. In my opinion.
By your own standards, Calvinists, living to worship God and enjoying doing so, are hedonistic, as they actively try to maximise their enjoyment.
That is very insightful, and absolutely correct.
No act of yours can make you worthy of salvation; once you've been picked (at random), no act of yours can make you worthy of damnation. Once you achieve that state of grace, you have no conscience, because nothing you do can be sin, because you can't sin.
Some misconceptions: you are not picked at random. God has a plan. And of course you can and will sin.
It's all God's choice, and you are just a slave.
I've seen this before. Earlier you were suggesting that we Calvinists are free to do whatever we want, so why not let sin abound? And now you suggest the exact opposite, that we are slaves and can not do what we want. You probably should pick one or the other as your primary complaint.
My "primary complaint", so to speak, is that no act of yours matters. You succeed or fail based purely on God's whim. That makes you a slave. When you succeed, it manifests as an utter submission to what you perceive as his will. That really makes you a slave.
On the other hand, because nothing you do matters, if you don't submit to his will, you do what you want. Because it doesn't matter.
This is not an inconsistent position in any way. They both result from the abdication of personal responsibility. And that's my beef.
What do Calvinist theologians explain or at least try to explain for what they believe god's plan may be that allows for seemingly innocent people to be damned before they have a chance to do anything?
Does it not seem strange that a loving god would damn someone before they have a chance to offend. (I realize this has probably been asked to you a thousand times, I just haven't been around to read it).
A short answer because I have to teach an Astronomy class at 8:00.
I have been asked that a lot, and the most honest answer is: I don't know.
Now I could go on and on about how God doesn't damn anyone, no double predestination, he actively saves some. That is with the elect he does something active to save them (regeneration) but with the reprobate he simply does nothing; they are damned by their rebellion--which they are helpless to overcome. I understand that at some level that's just semantics. But the bottom line question is: why doesn't God--who presumably could save everyone, choose to actively intervene to save only some?
I don't know. Romans 9 hints a bit at the answer a la vessels of mercy, vessels of wrath--but I don't really know.
Sorry if you've answered this before and I just haven't seen your answer, but you speak throughout as though you are fairly sure that you personally are among the elect.
Is this a correct interpretation of your views on my part and if so how do you know this?
assuming you're on NY time you'll be teaching now, but I'll write this anyway - basically, my issue is that I don't think you are in a position to judge what does or doesn't count as Christianity, since you don't have a truly objective standard by which to measure.
Everything you cited - Nicene creed, interpretation of the meaning of certain bible versions - are subjective; someone (or groups of someones) made the decision on the content and the wording in a time far removed from events of Jesus' life.
You have no more genuine reasons to believe you're right than those who don't accept the Nicene creed or who don't consider knowledge of the bible and the history of Christianity to be in any way relevant to their adherence.
I'll take a bible verse; here's one, John 3:15 - That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Seems to me that what that means is that the bible says anyone who believes in Jesus will be saved. Sure, you'll probably produce a half-dozen other verses that contradict that, and you can probably cut and paste a thousand pages of apologetics to 'explain it' in such a way that you'll argue the 'only' way of viewing John 3:15 is your way, but all that does is take us back to my question - why is your interpretation of them, a more correct one than a Christian who only cares about John 3:15 in the context I've used it?
You don't know, because there's no objective standard. You may believe it, but that doesn't mean that your belief trumps that of a Christian (outside your definition of Christian) who has a different interpretation.
No I love those doctrines--I don't know how my Arminian brothers live at peace wondering if their confession was sincere enough. I think the doctrine of total depravity is the most comforting of all--knowing that the only thing I contribute to my salvation is my sin is liberating.
If gawd could walk and talk with Adam and Eve, Enoch and Moses, why can't he show up now? Why didn't he show up on 9/11 or after Katrina, the tsunami, and the earth quakes?
That reminds me of something. When I was a college freshman, I was big into an album by English art/pop band 10cc called The Original Soundtrack, which contained their biggest hit: "I'm Not In Love". The whole album is good, though, and side 2 of the LP was kicked off by a pithy little rocker called "The Second Sitting For The Last Supper", which I loved to crank up on the stereo. In all the time I've been lurking here, with all the irreligious songs that have been cited and linked to, I've never seen this one come up. It's a goodie. And it rawks. :-)
(In a different song on the same album, they sing, "Life is a minestrone, served up with Parmesan cheese / Death is a cold lasagna, suspended in deep-freeze," which may indicate a belief in some kind of afterlife. Note that this was written before the advent of the microwave oven - which makes it prophetic in a deep, or perhaps I should say deep-dish, kind of way.)
You have no more genuine reasons to believe you're right than those who don't accept the Nicene creed or who don't consider knowledge of the bible and the history of Christianity to be in any way relevant to their adherence.
I think I do, using the bible as the yardstick, but that is somewhat beside the point. No matter how you slice and dice it, I am not obligated to accept someone’s claim willy-nilly. Nor are they under any obligation to accept mine. And by the way, if someone says “heddle is not a true Christian” and you feel inclined to defend me, don’t. It doesn’t offend me if someone says that. (I get that, occasionally, from hardcore YECs.)
I'll take a bible verse; here's one, John 3:15 - That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Before I answer that, I’ll make a bold assertion—that if you are to judge Calvinism vs. Arminianism by the standard of the number of isolated verses in scripture that support one or the other, Calvinism will win hands down. The mercy rule will come into play. On sheer numbers it dominates. There are a couple problematic verses in the New Testament for a Calvinistic view (yours is not one of them, but hold that thought), and scores of isolated that support it. Even its detractors acknowledge such, that a tally sheet of isolated verses greatly favors Calvinism, and argue (correctly) that verses in isolation are a poor way to do exegesis.
As for your verse, there is this explanation. The Greek word translated as “believe” in John 3:15 is pisteuō. It does not mean simple belief, but something deeper—like belief plus trust—which is what we normally call faith. An alternative translation is “whoever has faith will not perish.” If we had a common verb form for faith—he who “faiths”, that could be used here, but we don’t. So the verb gets translated as “believes”.
Calvinists absolutely agree with this verse. He who has faith (pistis—the noun) will have eternal life.
Who has this faith? The same word is used in Eph. 2:8: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith [pistis]—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
The faith comes not as something you muster up, but as a gift. (Here is one of those pro Calvinism verses.)
So Calvinism has no problem with John 3:15-16. The “believing” is faith. Whoever has it is saved. Who has it? Those to whom it was given as a gift from God.
why is your interpretation of them, a more correct one than a Christian who only cares about John 3:15 in the context I've used it?
Because, taking scripture as a whole, Calvinism either presents a more self-consistent and systematic interpretation—or it doesn’t. That is how you judge, at least between those theologies that claim to be based on the bible. And an unbeliever could do this—simply take the two broad views—Calvinism and Arminianism, and ask which fits better. So there is a way to judge. I would contend that the only thing that can obfuscate a conclusion of Calvinism is an injection of “well if I were God, I wouldn’t do that” into the mix. But don’t take my word for it—try it. But don’t say there is no way to judge. There is.
Lilly de Lure,
Is this a correct interpretation of your views on my part and if so how do you know this?
Yes it is. That gets into the doctrine of assurance of salvation. For that one has to examine one’s life and see if the promises of the changes that accrue to believers are evident in your own life. Do you feel repentance? Do you feel like a sinner? Do you see your life changing? Can you tell a before./after difference? Do you seek to glorify God? Do you enjoy God? Do you jettison guilt and readily accept grace? Do you give evidence of good works? Do you work out your salvation? Do you not only believe but trust? Do you not only believe and trust but do you think what God commands of you is not just a rule but is intrinsically good? Those things characterize someone with faith as opposed to someone who might, as James tells us the demons do, simply believe. So the answer is through self examination.
Rev. Chimp,
So how do Calvinist come to the idea that this is how it is compared to how say a Baptist or a Presbyterian views salvation?
Well, Presbyterians are Calvinists—just look up their confession (the Westminster Confession.) It is pure Calvinism. (Caveat—the mainline Presbyterian denomination, the PC-USA, is liberal—and who knows if they ever look their own confession—but historically Presbyterians are Calvinists, and the conservative Presbyterians still are.) And Baptists are more or less split, with the substantial Calvinist minority growing especially among the youth. (When I talk to Baptists students on campus—I am now surprised when they are not Calvinists. Ten years ago it would have been the other way around.)
But to answer your question in the most basic form—the difference is in the view of God’s sovereignty and original sin and how that is manifested. In a nutshell we have different time-orderings. Calvinists believe regeneration precedes faith. Non-Calvinists believe faith precedes regeneration.
Watchman,
Your point is not correct. OK, to be fair, it is not necessarily correct. I gave an example of a doctrine that like but I don't think is correct--the rapture of the church. I do not think it is right, even though I like it, which I think is your point. I also like the idea of universal salvation--I love that doctrine--but I don't think it is correct. So just because I like Calvinism doesn't mean that is why I believe it is correct--it could mean that. It could also mean that (and this in fact is what happened--and this is a common testimony of adult converts who become Calvinists) that the study of scripture led us inexorably to Calvinism--in many cases kicking and screaming, for we all the same common objections (that's not fair; we are puppets)--but only later did we come to love the doctrines.
Well, Presbyterians are Calvinists—just look up their confession (the Westminster Confession.)
Ok bad choice of denominations, I just picked two out of the air...
But to answer your question in the most basic form—the difference is in the view of God’s sovereignty and original sin and how that is manifested. In a nutshell we have different time-orderings. Calvinists believe regeneration precedes faith. Non-Calvinists believe faith precedes regeneration.
But what scripture makes you believe this? Which particular verses/book were used to interpret this in this way and what makes a Calvinist decide that is the correct way to interpret them vs. what another non-calvinist denomination would interpret them? You'll have to forgive me as while I've read the bible it was many moons ago and I don't pretend to have the ability to recall things without employing much google-fu.
Heddle, I freely admit to under-responding to your points. (Time constraints is one reason, lack of brain power is another.) I understand what you're saying, but I'm past the point of being able to see any of it as "true" - been there, done that - so as far as I'm concerned, all apologetics are mere rationalizations for justifying beliefs that are chosen, and not inevitable.
But what scripture makes you believe this? Which particular verses/book were used to interpret this in this way and what makes a Calvinist decide that is the correct way to interpret them
There are so many isolated verses it is hard to begin. There is actually a framework of Total Depravity or Original Sin. (For Calvinists, they are essentially the same thing.) That sets the stage, for Calvinists see it as making one morally incapable of pleasing God. I don't want to give the full scriptural support for Original Sin, let me summarize it with Rom. 3:10 No one seeks God and Rom 8:7 We are unable (not just unwilling) to obey God. and Rom. 8:8 Nobody pleases God. That's the framework.
Once a person buys that, then he sees we are in a bad way. If nobody seeks God, if nobody can obey, if nobody pleases God, then nobody can bring themselves to faith--for that would require seeking God, obeying God, and presumably pleasing God. So if Original Sin (Total Depravity--or moral inability) is true, then God had better gives us the faith, or we aren't going to get it and nobody will be saved. So once you have the T in TULIP, the others had better follow, or all is lost. So then you ask: are they also supported by scripture.
Yes. On that framework we can find any number of verses to support the other Calvinistic doctrines. Just to pick one: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. (John 6:44)
Here is a universal negative. Man, on his own, is actually incapable of coming to Jesus: No one can come to me. One is permitted: the verse does not teach that God prevents man from coming to Jesus, nor does it teach that God inclines man to stay away—it teaches that man is incapable.
But what does draw mean? Is it “woo,” which non-Calvinists admit is required, or does it mean compel?
That verb is used only two other places, where it is translated as drag in Acts 16:9 and James 2:6. The reference is of being dragged into court-- clearly meaning compelled to go to court—not being wooed into court.
So the verb would seem to carry a strong aspect of compulsion.
I can provide many more, but that probably paints the picture.
And then there is Romans 9, virtually a manifesto on Calvinism. There Paul even anticipates the objection: it’s not fair, how can I resist a sovereign God? and provides answers
Heddle, you may claim that a Calvinist view of the Bible is more self-consistent. That still won't change the fact that it is inconsistent; it just reduces it. You are doing a "pick-and-choose" approach. And you're doing it on a book that has undergone 2000 years of selective editing and translation. It's amazing how it's evolved over the centuries.
Not to mention that there is no proof about any of the claims it makes.
Studying scripture is as meaningful an exercise as learning to speak Quenya.
That still won't change the fact that it is inconsistent;
I don't admit it is inconsistent. No even close. And you certainly haven't shown it to be. My not being able to explain everything to the last dot over the last 'i' is not the same as the book being inconsistent.
You are doing a "pick-and-choose" approach.
Bullshit. If that is so, point out which passages that I have jettisoned. Point out which passages I have said: no fair, those don't count. On the contrary, I have cautioned against using isolated verses, even though it would be to my advantage.
And you're doing it on a book that has undergone 2000 years of selective editing and translation. It's amazing how it's evolved over the centuries.
Again, bullshit. The modern translations, say the NASB, NIV, and ESV of the NT are very good, scholarly translations of extant Greek manuscripts. So there is no evolution to speak of. Since we don't have the original manuscripts, we don't really know in what what we have, based on the earliest manuscripts that survived, differs. So how can you conclude that it is "amazing" how the bible has evolved over 2000 years. The answer: you can't--you're just making that up.
Studying scripture is as meaningful an exercise as learning to speak Quenya.
Fine, but If reading about it bothers you, then don't read my posts, or encourage people to stop asking me about it.
Studying scripture is as meaningful an exercise as learning to speak Quenya.
I'm afraid I'd have to go with far less meaningful. Considering the people I know who speak Klingon, Quenya sounds better. If you've never grasped the meaning of a love letter written using the Tengwar...well, hot elven maids with amazing calligraphic skills and amazing taste in places to spend overnight on the beach--let's just say they're not studying scripture.
So I guess you guys'll get bored with your interview with the monster. Nobody can make a dent in heddle's sociopathic little shield protecting him from our mere humanity. We can never make any points worth considering, he's just doing it to demonstrate what a saved guy he is. There is no hell, but spending another five minutes enduring heddle and I'd begin to consider the possibility that I might be in it.
But back to the original point. If a Joss Whedon or Peter Jackson, or a Ron Moore were to create a TV series, or a Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore were to create a comic book series that employed World Building that was straight out of Calvinism, no modern audience would buy it. It's a crappy worldview, institutionalized psychosis for sociopaths. It's fiction, but not even good fiction. It takes a really sick kind of fanboy to act as if it's true.
Heddle, all your bible quotes are irrelevant to reality unless and until there's some reason to suppose that biblical claims are true, which they're generally not (viz. the totally fictitious Genesis stories), so this is all just dungeons and dragons; does a kobold have infravision? You can find an answer in the text, but it's irrelevant to reality.
You can find an answer in the text, but it's irrelevant to reality.
Sure, I understand you feel that way. I am not volunteering scriptural explanations, I am being asked. Earlier in the thread I was accused of running away when doctrine came up--and now the complaint is that I am answering direct doctrinal questions. Go figure.
Nothing wrong with Heddle offering up what he and other Calvinists use to explain their doctrine. You don't have to agree with the scripture or how they interpret it but you have to at least accept on face value that is what they are using. You can think it is totally fucking wrong but that doesn't change that they use it in this way.
Unless you can show that he is lying or is wrong about what they use to build the foundation of their doctrine.
Remember, I asked him for some explanation because I'm frankly ignorant on what calvinists use to justify their interpretation.
"I can’t tell you how many sermons I have heard telling parishioners to avoid those aspects of the holidays carried over from pagan festivals."
Heddle can say that:
"In my family, we celebrate Christmas as a pagan holiday, acknowledging that it has little to to with Christianity."
and still have the nerve to pull a dozen or two no two Scotsmen on us!
So True Christians can celebrate pagan holidays now!
Oh, there is no war on Christmas. That's totally made up by the talking heads. We just want to be left alone. But you never answered my question why there isn't a movement to change the birthday party to spring.
One more point, the fact that there are many thousands of interpretations of scripture based on fine points of translation and which verses you emphasize is to me one of the primary evidences that the whole thing is bunk. Just imagine a car repair manual with as many interpretations of proper procedure as the bible has. Or better yet, a plumbers training course.
You don't have to agree with the scripture or how they interpret it but you have to at least accept on face value that is what they are using.
They're being quite formal about it, and I've no doubt we're getting a better lesson on the intricacies of Calvinism from heddle than we might get from many other places. What I'm left with, as a human being and an atheist, is my esthetic and emotional response to it; I can only offer a critical analysis of heddle's Calvinism as I would for any other human artifact or endeavor, like a work of art, or a piece of music, or a book, or a bloodied battlefield with ravens plucking freshly dead eyes from idealistic young children on a smoking battlefield.
If I understand Calvinism, somebody who believes that it accurately describes the world will go through life secure in the belief that the vast majority of the people he or she encounters will spend an eternity suffering the fate of the damned, and they're OK with that. I don't have any way to fit such a view into the way I look at people, and I can't imagine anybody living that way. It's why I have to conclude that while heddle is a very clever fellow, and can pass a Turing Test with ease, he doesn't appear to behave like I would hope any human being would. Just by virtue of his Calvinism, he isn't on humanity's side, just as I am not rooting for Calvinism. I think his beliefs, as sophisticated as they are, are toxic, and stupid, and I have no more interest in them than I do in what motivates a mass murderer, except as a cautionary lesson.
What I'm left with, as a human being and an atheist, is my esthetic and emotional response to it; I can only offer a critical analysis of heddle's Calvinism as I would for any other human artifact or endeavor, like a work of art, or a piece of music, or a book, or a bloodied battlefield with ravens plucking freshly dead eyes from idealistic young children on a smoking battlefield.
No argument there. I was just asking for the info from the Calvinists mouth. Do with it as you may. I tend to feel the same way about it from what little I know, but I wanted some data points to actually read up on.
Me too. The more I learn, the uglier it gets. Is it just me, or am I hopelessly naive to hope for and strive for better creations from humanity that hell, and sin, and depravity?
If I understand Calvinism, somebody who believes that it accurately describes the world will go through life secure in the belief that the vast majority of the people he or she encounters will spend an eternity suffering the fate of the damned, and they're OK with that.
I'm not sure that view is just limited to Calvinism. Certainly the Rapture Ready folks seem to share a similarly dim view of the fate of the vast majority of humanity. Heck, anyone who thinks Christianity is the only path to salvation pretty much accepts that most of those on the planet will eventually endure eternal agony.
I think that, like the abortion issue, most Christians really don't believe what they profess, or at least don't understand the full consequences. Ask most Christians if abortion is murder and they will say yes, yet almost all will refuse to suggest that the woman should be charged with murder, or that intentionally implanting more embryos than can survive in an IVF procedure is at least manslaughter. Likewise, I don't think that most Christians fully grok what their theological commitments regarding salvation and hell actually mean for those around them. For most it seems that "You're going to hell" is more of a scolding than a realization that the recipient will endure tortures for an eternity.
Heck, anyone who thinks Christianity is the only path to salvation pretty much accepts that most of those on the planet will eventually endure eternal agony.
I don't. Revelation describes multitudes in heaven. I think most people, at least in an integrated sense, will be saved.
And is mostly opposed to the kind of soteriology we find in Romans:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
--22:14-15
How is that not salvation by works, and damnation by doing evil?
Heddle, I'd argue that Calvinism doesn't believe that Christianity is the only path to salvation. God can save whoever the heck he wants to, right? Even the Buddhists and Jews and Muslims, even the atheists, even most egregious sinner -- what one believes or does has no effect on one's salvation. Many of those who call themselves Christian do not believe that -- they believe that the only way to salvation is to explicitly and consciously believe that Jesus is the saviour. By that criterion, most of those on the planet will burn forever in hell.
Heddle, I'd argue that Calvinism doesn't believe that Christianity is the only path to salvation. God can save whoever the heck he wants to, right? Even the Buddhists and Jews and Muslims, even the atheists, even most egregious sinner -- what one believes or does has no effect on one's salvation.
Yes and no. Christianity is not the only path to salvation--in the sense that it is entirely possible that people unrecognizable as Christians--even those we excommunicate, are saved. At best it is the normative path.
On the other hand, no one gets to the father except by the son. So if a non-traditional Christian--or a baby for that matter--or anyone else is saved--it will be because he can, by grace, present himself before God on the basis of Christ's righteousness. Even if they do not know Christ. So in that sense they are Christians--they just cannot articulate it.
Calvinism is consistent with this. You are quite right. A great Calvinistic verse, perhaps the most definitive of all, is "God will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy."
But even in the case where a conscious decision is the standard you cannot conclude that most people will burn in hell. Who knows what the planet will be like 200, 500, 1000, 10000 years from now. The vast majority of people who will ever live are not alive at the moment.
CJO,
How is that not salvation by works, and damnation by doing evil?
Because only those who can do his commandments, even imperfectly, or only imperfectly, are those already saved.
Also, the better translations are the newer ones, such as the ESV. They will say something like:
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.(Rev 22:14)
Robes are a symbol of righteousness. Those who wash their robes have been saved. The fact that they are washed presupposes they were filthy. The righteousness by which they are cleansed is that of Christ. The works of salvation are his. The necessary works by us are consequences, not causes.
It is perhaps better to read the non-apocalyptic style books, which are easier to understand. For example: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2:8-9).
Can't get a much clearer that it is not salvation by works-- while at the same time all saved people will do good works.
in that sense they are Christians--they just cannot articulate it.
That sounds like rank sophistry to me, but I'm sure it will comfort all those Jews and Muslims and Shintoist and Hindus to know that some of them might be really Christians, even if they don't know it.
even in the case where a conscious decision is the standard you cannot conclude that most people will burn in hell. Who knows what the planet will be like 200, 500, 1000, 10000 years from now. The vast majority of people who will ever live are not alive at the moment.
Right -- I thought it was clear from the context that I meant most people currently on the planet. In any case, I find it hard to be casual about the possible eternal torture of several billion people.
Wasn't going to get into it (and of course I perpetuated the equivocation myself, using the term "salvation by works" talking about Rev. 22), but Paul's meaning of "works" is a technical term relating to works of the law, specifically circumcision and the purity codes; it emphatically excludes the modern vernacular "good works," meaning ethical conduct.
Personally, I think it does violence to Paul's message to relate him to modern sensibilities at all, Calvinist or otherwise.
We never did nail down what Heddle meant by this bold assertion:
Randall Wilkes #136:
few religionists ever give it [the pagan roots of Christian holidays] a thought.
Heddle's response #139:
You are deluding yourself. Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays.
Of course, by "us," Heddle didn't mean "religionists." It turns out he also didn't mean self-described Christians. At one point, he suggested he meant self-described Christians who attend church regularly.
But that was followed by a bunch of "no true Christian" crap, so it looks like "us" must pared down further to mean something like self-described Christians who attend church regularly, except Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. Or is it self-described Christians who attend church regularly and whose beliefs "roughly" approximate the Nicene Creed? Or is it something else?
Heddle, by your own words you have declared both that your version of the Bible is inconsistent, AND that you adopt a pick-and-choose approach.
First, the Bible as a whole _is_ inconsistent. You claim that the interpretation Calvinism is more self-consistent than other interpretations, such as Arianism (a term properly applied to a sect of Christianity that died out 1400 years ago, but you seem to be using it in a more modern sense). The only way to make an inconsistent text more consistent is to ditch the inconsistencies. So you _must_ have dropped sections. Further more, you state it is more self-consistent, not that it is self-consistent. Unfortunately, consistency is like pregnancy - you can't be just a little inconsistent.
Heck, you've admitted one inconsistency which you can't resolve already - why a loving god would refuse to save everyone (which, given his supposed power, is the same as actively damning them, especially because he set up the conditions that led to the damnation AND made it applicable to individuals not born who had no say in it).
In addition, the books may be good translations of the ancient Greek. But ancient Greek, much like English, had words with multiple meaning. Just as it is possible to interpret written English in multiple ways, it is easy to interpret ancient Greek in multiple ways. And guess what? Those interpretations change over time.
Yes, we think the modern translations are good scholarly translations. But so were the older translations, such as the King James version - for their time. This just reinforces my point: that the interpretation of translation itself changes over time.
And even with the modern translations, there is still massive room for different interpretations. Let's pick the quote you used just above:
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.(Rev 22:14)
You say robes are a symbol of righteousness. Well, not for the time Revelations was written. Then robes were a symbol of, well, robes. Clothing. You see, what this literally says is "Blessed are those who do their laundry". The idea that robes are a symbol of righteousness is an _interpretation_ laid on top. Personally, I'm of the opinion that an omnipotent omniscient being can get his dictation done correctly. If he'd meant "blessed are the righteous", that's what he would have said.
Finally, even if I was to cede (which I don't) that modern translations of the bible are 100% correct, it wouldn't change the point that the canonisation of the Bible itself was a political bitch fight in the early church, with texts being rejected and included based largely on which faction was more powerful. Every one of the books in the modern Bible, especially those in the New Testament, existed in multiple forms, and there were numerous additional gospels rejected. Curiously, a number of those apparently didn't mention Jesus doing miracles or exhibiting supernatural powers; one of the most common reasons of rejection given was that the text denied the Resurrection. (Of course, some books also went to extremes, such as Jesus blasting his enemies with his eyes, flying with the birds, or walking on water and creating food with the wave of his hand... wait, no those last two got in). So at the very best, you are interpreting a book put together by people with a political agenda, some 300-400 years after the fact, who deliberately omitted the more credible and realistic versions of the texts. Just look at Revelations itself - this is a book that got accepted in the Canons as a result of a split vote; the Eastern Churches (which went on to become the various Orthodox churches) rejected it. Even today, the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't acknowledge the canonisity of Revelations, and it's not read in church or studied by the laity.
Anyway, I'm going to stop chasing up on this thread; as fun as it's been, there's other fun to have.
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes,
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses,
And whats with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies!
Just the thing for my facebook profile pic.
My god has tentacles! (Well, noodles, same difference.)
I win?
Is that a framing hammer?
Bah, the Norse guy is just a thor loser.
Please don't ban me.
Happy Easter to you PZ! And all your devoted friends!
Keep up the good work, thinking and talking about God!
Blasphemous heretics!
Moccus is the provider of bacon, sausage, ham and baby-backs, much more toothsome than tough ol Thor. *snort*
Happy Monkey!
And happy chocobunny candy day.
I'm not sure if that was intentional but there are many levels of win in that
All hail Moccus!
I Like Bacon!
Personally i don't celebrate any religious holidays.
they are anoying, the shops are closed.
I have had people gasp at me.. and say that those holidays were _THE_ time to spend with your families and such..
I always get pretty angry when people say that. If i want to spend time with my family (or friends) i make time for them.
I don't need some stupid religion based day off to suddenly realise i _have_ a family that i really should visit on that very day.
If it were up to me.. people would just get more days off in their jobs, and they could create (or chose) their own celebration days instead of having to comfort to some stupid social history of a country.
On topic..
Nothing better than to piss off some fundies on their holiday :)
If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over his ass...
Blah! Blah! Blah!
#9 (Barklikeadog): "baby-backs"
How insanely cruel!
You baby-killers stop at NOTHING, don't you?
I've already had the obligatory "Happy Easter! Did you go to sunrise service?" question this morning in the grocery store.
As I stood there unshowered, in shorts and flip flops with my "I > U" t-shirt on buying a 12 pack of beer.
It amazes my how completely unaware some people can be.
Perfect. A great thing to share on easter, so I will.
Where do you find these treasures?
$12 -> That was actually more to #6 (Patricia)!
The Pope seems to be out and about today.
Must be one of those special days when they take special pains to reinforce the ideology.
I read yesterday that the pope send chocolate eggs to the kids that are now homeless due to the earthquake in Italy.
And a bit of money..
And materials to quickly build altars so those homeless people at least will have their easter masses.
It's a magic framing hammer. And it has a name. And a vodka.
Beat that, xtians.
#13 (Rev BDC) "It amazes my how completely unaware some people can be"
ARE they? Aren't you making certain assumptions here?
Maybe we should go check out those 'sunrise services'! Ya never know!
The Bunny has Risen! (That's what this is all about, right? RIGHT?)
You gotta wonder what's wrong with people that won't fire up the back yard pit and cook up a nice rack of baby-backs.
A few deviled eggs to go with the beer might work too.
Been there done that. Did not buy the t-shirt or the Religion.
I'd much rather spend any sunrise that I'm awake out taking photos instead of listening to endless droning about some zombie guy and his pissed of dad. Whether it has trumpets and flowers and happy smiley weirdos or not.
pissed off dad that is.
The day to worship chocolate and beer, and watch Pope Ratzinger swishing about on his balcony in his pretty new lace and satin party dress!
I killed it with a BB gun a few years ago. Sorry, It was a freak shot. It bounced like a basket ball after I shot it so i had to break its neck. We ate it too.It was kind of dry though.
First Keester typo, that's the spirit!
Oh.. another thing to think about :)
quoted from http://www.prime.org/easter.htm
Priceless.
Kids keep asking: why the bunnies? why the eggs? how is this related to Easter? They bickered over who got the most candy eggs. On intervening with the eldest, she said, in all seriousness: "mommy. it's chocolate".
I'd pay five bucks to see the Chimp in a lace and satin party dress.
Isn't today the day that Jesus looks out of his tomb and, if he sees his shadow, there'll be three more weeks of winter? Or something like that.
only five bucks?
I'll give you $6 to avoid that sight.
/me raises a flagon of mead in honour of Odin All-Father
Wait, I think we're missing something important here.
Did someone say bacon?
What?! Now come on Sven we're trying to be festive.
I'll bid seven bucks for the Chimp in a party dress and a tiara.
((sigh)) and I thought the graphic I found for the day was good...
PZ where do you find all this stuff? Or do people send it all to you?
And that's $6 from the man in Di Sveator. Do I hear $7? $7? It's a bargain at any price folks... $6 going once, twice at $6, thr... (Loud shouting in crowd...) And that's $7 from the slightly nauseous looking gentleman who just came running in breathless to make his bid... We have $7... (Waves gavel...) C'mon people, I have a hammer too, y'know... We have $7, who'll give me $8...
We had an Iranian housemate back in the day; we all spent good times in mutual cultural explication. (Much of it involved cooking.) We were trying to explain the Easter regalia and things went swimmingly till we got to the bunny.
We had a long moment of silence vis-a-vis the bunny. Later I made Hassenpfeffer, which explains everything.
And yet, you're looking at an image most likely created by a neopagan who believes in his imaginary friend (w/hammer) just as fervently as Christians believe in theirs (nailed to cross), because he decided that Thor makes so much more sense. Or at least that's the kind of person from whom I've heard that line before.
Doesn't so much make me laugh as remind me that if Christianity weren't so prevalent, people would just find other, equally ridiculous bullshit to believe in -- and some of them already do.
Were this a few years back and were this halloween in New Orleans, it might have happened.
not so much now.
Our god is an awesome god!
Oh, and Hail Eris!
http://www.kbuxton.com/discordia/
You are a Pope!
Happy Ostara late, happy Beltaine, happy man-it's-a-good-day-to-have-a-drink-of-scotch.
Whatever.
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes,
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses,
And whats with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies!
I occasionally get the chance to remind rabid christianists that their god is pretty weak; after all think of the names of the days of the week.
Monday - moon day. no christiany stuff there.
Tuesday - Tyr's day. Nordic god of war.
Wednesday - Woden's Day.
Thursday - Thor's Day.
Friday - Freya's Day.
Saturday - Saturn day
Sunday - no, not the 'son of god. Sorry.
Fail, total fail. Heads asplode.
Just tell them it's a pagan fertility celebration.
The Bunny was originally the Mad March Hare, racing around the fields at the time of the Spring Equinox, one of the familiar signs that marked the season for our farming ancestors. I suppose calling it the Easter Bunny makes it sound more cosy and less certifiable.
Oh yeah? Well my god is entirely nonexistent and can still kick both of your gods' imaginary asses!
Happy chocolate egg day, everyone. :P
It's pretty interesting how paganism got incorporated into Christianity. Just a question about the easter traditions if anyone knows, which came first, the bunny or the egg?
I once watched very very large "bunnies" (they stood at least 4' tall on their hind legs battling it out like boxers. In Scotland. They are really BIG! They appeared vicious and ready to kill each other. I think the Monty Python sketch was a real rabbit. They kill. All hail the Rabbit God of Vicious Killing. Then again this might have been mating season.
Bacon today is good. Tomorrow, marshmallow peeps are 70% off!
What did Jesus say to the roman soldier once he was up on the cross.
Hey I think I can see your house from up here.
--------------
What's the difference between Jesus Christ and an oil painting?
You only need one nail to hold up a picture.
-----------
Why can't Jesus eat M&M's?
They keep falling through his hands.
---------------------
Jesus and Moses were strolling by the Red Sea, when Moses nudged Jesus and said, "Psst. Hey, Jesus, I've still got it."
Moses turned towards the Red Sea and lifted his staff on high. The angels began to sing, the gentle sea breeze turned into a raging gale, and the waters of the Red Sea were parted. Moses lowered his arms and, with a smug grin on his face, turned back to face Jesus.
Jesus scoffed. "Moses, my boy," said the Messiah, "I have still got it." And with a flourish of his robes, Jesus stepped onto the waters of the Red Sea and began to stride across without so much as a ripple.
But to Moses' amazement, halfway across the water, Jesus suddenly began to sink. He splashed into the water and began to choke and flounder as the waves tossed him around. Moses grumbled at Jesus' sillyness and parted the water once more. Moses helped Jesus back to shore, as the Saviour hacked up salt water.
When they had finally reached shore, Moses slapped a consoling hand on Jesus' shoulder and said, "Don't worry about it, Lord. Last time you tried it, you didn't have holes in your feet."
------------
why would jesus have made a great pornstar?
He was hung like this *holds hands up like being crucified/showing a size*
---------
I once saw this bumper sticker "Jesus is my co-pilot and we're crusin' for pussy"
---------------
Why didn't Jesus go to law school?
He was nailed on the boards.
------------------
Why did jesus cross the road
because he was nailed to the chicken
-------------
One of the campus frats is having an Easter party tonight. Listening in on a group of first years discuss why they would party, I chimed in "Well, it is a fertility holiday." One piped up that it "was" a fertility holiday, and I had to remind her that all those rabbits and eggs are around for a reason.
I dunno, could all of these "Christ is risen" slogans be alluding to something else? Perhaps they are celebrating that their god is not an impotent god?
I love it!
Bacon flavored Marshmallow Peeps I hope!
Jesus walks into a motel, gives the innkeeper three giant nails and asks, “Can you please put me up for the night?”
------------
Jesus dies and goes up to Heaven. The first thing he does is look for his father, as he has never met the man before and is curious as to what he looks like, and whether or not Jesus looks like his mother or father, etc. He looks high and low but cannot find him. He asks St. Peter “Where is my father?” But St. Peter says he doesn’t know. He asks the archangel Gabriel “Where is my father?” But Gabriel doesn’t know. He asks John the Baptist “Where is my father?” But John does not know. So he wanders Heaven, impatiently searching. Suddenly he sees out of the mist an old man coming toward him. The man is very old, with white hair, stooped over a little. “Stop!” Jesus yells. “Who are you?” “Oh, please help me, I am an old man in search of my son.” Jesus is very curious. Could this be his father? “Tell me of your son, old man.” “Oh, you would know him if you saw him. Holes in his hand where the nails used to be, he was nailed to a cross, you know…” “Father!!!!!” Screams Jesus. “Pinocchio!!!!!!!” yells the old man.
Not just paganism, but lots of other near eastern religions had little bits plucked from them to make up Christianity. Kinda like Red Green building a project.
Peeps, fried up in bacon grease. Mmmmm, them's good eat'n.
As I stood there unshowered, in shorts and flip flops with my "I > U" t-shirt on buying a 12 pack of beer.
It amazes my how completely unaware some people can be.
back when i was in my full-time pussy-pirate mode, I used to go to services like midnight mass and sunrise service to try to spot single chicks, whom I'd try to finagle a place next to. I'd tell 'em I was returnting to church after a long hiatus, and could they help me with the liturgy?
Sometimes I'd score before breakfast...
Anne Robinson: Jesus - The dependence of telomere position effect on telomere length provides a mechanism for the modification of gene expression throughout the replicative life-span of human cells. True or false?
Jesus: Ummm... false.
Anne Robinson: That is incorrect. The correct answer is, "true". You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
" Rev. BigDumbChimp Author Profile Page | April 12, 2009 11:33 AM
Is that a framing hammer?
I'm not sure if that was intentional but there are many levels of win in that"
Well I don't think there is a Matting hammer but I knew that someone here would get the point anyway.
Newfie, are you suggesting that christianity is built with the handyman's secret weapon, duct tape?
"sunrise service"
Sounds like a euphemism for wake and bake or morning head.
It does but trust me it is probably what I would consider the exact opposite of either of those activities. And we all know everything has opposites as Uenga told us the other day.
Honestly, not the best picture of Mjolnir. The handle should be way shorter, demonstrating that it's more of a throwing hammer than a swinging hammer. Really, a simple claw hammer is far better when working with nails.
Rev, I have it on good Aauthority that the boys are going to open the tour tonight with Here Comes Peter Cottontail. (You have to admit there's something familiar about that auto-wah.)
You heard it here first.
If it were in a showroom, it would be a ChevyFordDodgeKiaHundaiMazdaSubaruHondaToyotaFiatLada Hybrid.
Kick ass because I'm planning on wearing a big pink bunny suit.
Near-fatal case of "Why didn't I think of it myself?"
Of course, Jesus rose from the dead. But then, Thor never got dead in the first place. Still a net win for Thor.
Zombie Jeebus Day, and Rev. is going to see The Dead. Coincidence?
Void of Slack, but I like it.
Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat made teh skiez An teh Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
My day is saved. (In stark contrast to my diaphragm.)
Hasenpfeffer. Long [a], short (or even voiced) [s].
Teh winz0r.
An omnipotent one even...
Daughter, home from college asks, why aren't we doing any easter stuff? My reply, all of us including her being recent vegas, which part? The boiled easter eggs? The overcooked ham? The polish sausage? The milk chocolate eggs? The gelatin peeps?... tough holiday for vegans.
So we sat around the table, drank coffee and had a nice conversation. Best easter ever.
Nah, that's just what the PR people claim. The body went missing, a B-rate horror actor went and scared a handful of losers, and after some sloppy but persistent editing, a legend was started.
Jesus and Moses are playing golf. There is a notorious water hazard on seven. Moses pulls out his nine iron.
"What? You're not going to drive over the pond?" asks Jesus.
Moses answers, "Not on your life. Nobody can clear the water from here."
"Arnold Palmer cleared it from this very spot. Twice." asserted Jesus.
Moses takes his shot and lays up just short of the water. A nice shot. Then Jesus uses his driver and the ball drops dead in the middle of the hazard. The two walk silently to the waters edge. Moses stops next to his ball while Jesus walks out on the water searching for his.
Another player approaches Moses and asks, "Who does that guy think he is? Jesus Christ?"
Moses, slowly shaking his head answers, "No. He thinks he's Arnold Palmer."
*Happy Easter. Fertility and Chocolate and Bacon to all*
There once was a god with a hammer
Who had a wee problem with grammar
His language, it seems
Only fat ladies sing
What he wants is a Nordic def jammer!
++++
Clang, clang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down, upon his head.....
BTW, Valhalla > than heaven.
nuff said
A co-worker of mine mentioned that the mall nearby is closed today for Easter & said it surprised her since, "American's are so anti-religion. Why would the mall pay service to God like that when all the religion-bashers probably just want to shop?" I suggested that it rather had something to do with the economy, something to do with many of the mall's stores being closed for good anyway. She was unconvinced. How could anyone believe this country is anti-religion?? And we live squarely in the Bible Belt, for fuck's sake.
I pulled up the latest Pew data and it surprised her. Ugh.
This is bunny decapitation (and devour) day. You could be at serious risk of a nasty accident: You don't taste of chocolate and your remains are liable to choke someone. And you'll never get your FINISHED.
Yes, I know it's supposed to be chocolate bunny decapitation day (and chocolate bunnys are not, in general, pink, large, or animate), but some people aren't that careful—especially after a few beers or getting high on bacon.
Because it still cracks me up.
I'd love to see that Thor poster on a t-shirt!
Rumors around Hollywood were, Thors was MC Hammers inspiration for his hit song "You can't touch this"
But let us not forget that Odin was nailed to a tree for nine days and nights rather than a mere three (?). Not sure if that counts as dying and coming back to life or not. He did it willingly to earn wisdom, along with sacrificing an eye for knowledge.
But Patricia, does Moccus have access to Sæhrímnir? Think of it, resurrected pork!
Yup, never argue with the Norse
Are you sure it was Jesus that rose from the grave? I have it on good authority that it was Joan Crawford!
Sunday morning, Thor stumbles, hungover down the halls of Valhalla. He sees a demigoddess but remembers her not, as distinctly as possible he proclaims "I'm Thor!, God of thunder!". She opens an eye halfway. Taking a deep breath, he bellows, "Im Thor!, God of thunder!". She replies, "You're thore?, I'm tho thore I can hardly pith!" (Insert rimshot)
A BigDumbChimp in a pink bunny suit... how much are the tickets to see that?
"rimshot" inserted.
Kristjan @85 - I haven't seen that pork resurrection. The norse sure had something for pigs. Freya rides a magic sow.
Thor is full of win
change TGIF to Sure Happy It's Thor's day
ROFL!!! I've got to get that in a poster, or a desksize picture that usually has those motivational sayings.
I think it's "2000 more years of oppression."
This is just the right song for this post! Just imagine the hordes of xians marching to this song :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPJdjEbhWXw
This is so obvious, I am embarrassed it slipped my mind.
tsig #60
Barklikeadog@49:
"He's got huge, sharp...he can leap about...look at the BONES!"
A flatulent nun from Hawaii
On Easter Eve supped on papaya;
Then honored the Passover
By turning her ass over
and obliging with Handel's Messiah.
Todays a very special day. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for today. Forget bunnies or the guy on the cross, it's my mom's birthday.
OT: Ireland archbishop admits child abuse report 'will shock us all'
Color me surprised...
But there is good news too:
That's the rendition of Thor from Age of Mythology. Fun game.
A rabbi who lived in Peru
Was vainly attempting to screw.
His wife said, "Oy Vey!
You keep on this way
The Messiah will come before you."
Ohhhh - someone's goin ter hell fer this one!
Janine @98...
Thanks for that Patti Smith vid, She has a great voice, is very cute, and doesn't afraid of anything.
That last bit is in honor of Anonymous, but I can't explain that; rules 1 and 2, after all.
speaking of which, I give you Peepus and the Thieves (more appropriate for friday, but i forgot)
"But let us not forget that Odin was nailed to a tree for nine days and nights rather than a mere three (?). Not sure if that counts as dying and coming back to life or not. He did it willingly to earn wisdom, along with sacrificing an eye for knowledge. "
Odin does all that earn wisdom, while Jehovah punishes all mankind for daring to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. That almost tells you all you need to know right there.
The link didn’t show up, but it was from the guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/10/child-abuse-catholic-church…
While we're at Valhalla (great BD, by the way), don't forget Heiðrún, the goat milked for mead.
Thanks blf.
Strange, I had the correct HTML tags, but the href="link" part just disappeared after I posted my comments.
One more and then I'm going to the beach.
Said the Lord, "I do not often get
Down to Earth, because once on a bet
I had an affair
With a Jewish girl there,
And they're talking about it all yet."
Drosera, I think that (vanishing href=…) happens when you forget the "double quotes". Tests:
* Sans quotes: test.
* With quotes: test.
Verified in Preview before Posting.
Patti Smith is all kinds of awesome, but "very cute"? (A little reminder of the meaning of that word.)
I saw her play in Birmingham, Alabama in 1979...the local frat boys were being "punks" by wearing skinny ties and Yankees caps, and Patti had to be physically dragged off stage by Birmingham cops as she made horrible noise on a clarinet...good times.
We need a Cthulhu version of this. *nods*
There are no “gods”, only fairy tales. Fantasies to explain away the dark, justify sex with young children, and profit. You really don’t think the witch doctor really believes that tossing a virgin in a volcano will make it rain, do you? Nooo… tossing a virgin in a volcano keeps him in his cushy witch doctor gig, with the additional perk of spending a few quality end of life hours with the virgin – what…!? you thought the virgin, stoned to the bone on Ambien, Prozac, and Viagra and smiling all the way to the bottom, was still a virgin when the witch doctor tossed ‘em in? I’ve got some property to sell. Ocean-front. Cheap. Cash only, in small bills. You’ll love Idaho!
Recalling that in all legend lay a kernel of fact, reading the fabrications koran, bible, and torah in larger, historical context with other fabrications lain down in stone it is in fact quite easy to afford “Intelligent Design” a measure of credibility. When chariots with wheels of fire flitting about, vast arks propelling the seeds of life across vast empty spaces, and fathers asking of their wives “be this my son, or that of a “giant?” are lain aside the physical record it isn’t all that far fetched to supposit that at some point in the past half-million years extra-terrestrial travelers – for whatever reason: pure science, sheer boredom, desperate survival, or profit – genetically interfered with the development of the proto-humans they found roaming the savannahs of Northern and Western Africa. Not only are we but fleas agitating the hide of a far greater organism, but some bastard’s abandoned science project, if not cattle, as well. Wrap the twelve percent of your brain you use around that.
This notion that the bastard is going to come back and rescue us… that as the blood of our adolescent squabbles over whose imaginary dog has the bigger dick rises to the horses’ bridle will come floating down out of the sky on a white horse with a thousand angels to carry away the chosen few, the faithful… Who are these “Chosen People”, these “faithful”? The genetically purest cattle (or pigs, as it is)? More accurately: just who do they think they are? Get this straight, these “Chosen People”, these “faithful”, can destroy the world – burn the forests, chop down the mountains, turn the air we breath into toxic gas and waters we drink into vast garbage reservoirs… can
and at the last moment, the moment the world is utterly destroyed, after the bloodbath, some spectral being with whom they’ve entered into some kind of “special” contractual obligation is going to float down out of the sky and carry them away.
Uh-huh. To what?
Far the more likely thousands upon thousands of cavernous spacecraft, vast slaughter-houses piloted by ravenous vaguely reptilian creatures, replete with horns and folked tail, intent not as benevolent overseers of the demise of this world and our current iteration in human evolution and our children’s evolution onto the next iteration of humanity but as ravenous reptilian creatures… you know, hungry lizards. We did, afterall, invite them to “Come Eat!”
Though I often despair of humanity, seeing the mass as that of maggots: a few will evolve and escape as flies, the vast majority will consume the host and die, we as a species, the human species, as a “race”, the human race, today stand at a cusp, an iteration, in the evolution, in the maturing, of humankind. But if we don’t abandon - outgrow - this irrational dependency on adolescent fairytales and attendant adolescent squabbles over whose imaginary dog has the bigger dick… we may very well not survive at all. And while Americans certainly enjoy the “right” to believe whatever fairytale it is chosen to be believed, we are equally free not to believe in fairytales, and leave me remind you of Ben Franklin’s admonishment that “‘rights’ end with the tip of [the] nose”. There is no inherent “right” to impose such nonsense on me, or mine, nor is there any “right”, “divine” or otherwise, to destroy the world my grandchildren are growing up in… in the name of some dog. To do so will result, “right”fully so, in short order and at my hand, in instruction in the difference between prey, and prayer.
Rather than beating of breasts and wailing on street corner, far better to do as Jesus said: put it in the closet.
[Originally published at Homeless on the High Desert Sunday 12 April 2009(pig-era) as a part of the Easter Blogswarm Against Theocracy, an international Internet protest of the imposition of religion upon government, and The People. Lyrics (blockquote) Paul Kantner, 1969. Thomas Ware – Ten Bears (O’Owlish Amenheh) – is a local “witch doctor” who would gleefully toss a virgin in a volcano… if he could find one. Sadly, unlike others… the witch doctorin’ business isn’t as profitable as it once was.]
How many worship Thor? how many worship Jesus?
The zombie god has won over the war god.
This demotivator isn't very realistic.
Although it did make me smile.
Dear concern trolls: FOAD
The rest of us should celebrate on these holidays that we can laugh at the religious and critique how fallacious their beliefs are and not be killed for it.
I celebrate that all the time.
We are living on the cusp of a great age.
No, Zeus is awesomest. He can change shape, zap lightning and frequently shags anything that moves. He understands the meaning of fun.
A Norse! A Norse! My Kingdom for a Norse!
Jesus wasn't God, Jesus was SON OF GOD. I wish these Thor-ists would get it right...It's a thor point with me...
Janine, both Joss Whedon and Patti Smith?
You seriously rock (as of it wasn't already obvious).
So open your keister, it's Easter!
Where do I get the T-shirt for this?
Isn't Thor dead? Didn't he go down mutual annihilation style with some big serpent thing at the Norse end of days?
@Pascalle:
I agree - same with me. I also don't like the Hallmark Holidays - you know the sort: only love your parents one day a year. I'm also very generous and people I know receive gifts when appropriate, but virtually never on birthdays or on any god-days. Some are corpora vile though and dare complain that they received no gift on day X despite the fact they have received so much over the years. Hallmark poisons peoples' minds.
Janine of The Fixed Identity wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbcKdc0xhNw
Happy Easter.
Now, where'd I leave my choco-bunny?
If not easter eggs, how about Darwin Eggs?
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=91028§ionid=3510208
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/found-egg-that-helped--give-b…
blf@115,
Thanks again, but no, the quotes were there. Maybe the encoding of the quotes has something to do with it. Never mind, I'll find a way next time.
Kids keep asking: why the bunnies? why the eggs? how is this related to Easter?
The rabbit and the egg were the symbols of the celtic/germanic fertility goddes Eostre, whose feast was -- coincidentally celebrated in April around the equinox. Her feast was a pretty good piss-up and doubtless led to lots of worshipping in the bushes. "Eostre" was pronounced "Easter" but that's also coincidence, to be sure.
When the christians came 'round they co-opted it. Typical. And they spoiled the party. Also typical.
@PeteK:
Wrong again. Son of god but god - it's the ultimate in inbreeding and schizophrenia.
[OT] Quick everyone - tomorrow's Monday and PZ's turning on the user registration.
Does anyone know if Jeebus saw his shadow today? Because I am getting tired of winter...
But isn't that just a Thory?
Surprised this one hasn't come up yet:
Buddy, I don't care who your father is; you drop that cross one more time and you're out of the fucking procession.
A Chinese woman once asked me what Easter eggs and bunnies had to do with Easter. I had to smile because few religionists ever give it a thought.
Oestre, from whom we get the word Easter, was the pagan goddess of the dawn, hence sunrise services. She was also a fertility goddess, and eggs and bunnies are fertility symbols. They, like the Chistmas tree are vestigial remnants of more natualistic religions.
Wowbagger, did you ever find your "Conquistador?"
I lol'd. What do you make of the #amazonfail?
Randall Wilks,
You are deluding yourself. Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays. This is such a common, blatant error--I am truly curious as to why would it give you a sense of superiority to assume that you know this but we don't? Pop psychology would suggest that you must be very insecure. In truth, it just makes you look really, really dumb to us.
Jim Walker's website "nobeliefs.com" does this every Easter. Good stuff:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/easter.htm
Spare a thought for us in the southern hemisphere who are heading into autumn not spring. It’s enough to make you kill and eat a bunny (which are pests down this way).
And everyone spare a thought for those of us in New Zealand who can’t, BY LAW, buy alcohol on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. Bloody xtians!
lulz.
Bone Oboe,
Thanks for reminding me. The answer is Stupidity Tries by Elliott Smith.
And so I go from floor to floor
Looking for a port of call
Another drunk conquistador
Conquering the governors ballhere to see him playing it on Letterman.
ditto. something about being expected to give gifts (and even be told what you're supposed to give) sort of kills the whole concept of gift-giving. both my boyfriend and I generally only give gifts as a surprise at random times. it's much more fun that way. except on the boyfriend's birthday, because I like making birthday cake :-)
The God who was "nailed to the cross" rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father. The God with the hammer is a false God. Any questions?
"Us" being who exactly? Do you honestly think a majority of Christians in the US know that Easter was named after a pagan god? Heck, do you honestly think a majority of US Christians could even tell you what "pagan" means? When I was a Catholic in Texas, I can guarantee you that not one in ten of the believers I knew could tell you anything about the pagan roots of Christian holidays.
The God who was "nailed to the cross" rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father. The God with the hammer is a false God. Any questions?
Quite a few, actually.
lots. for starters, "how can you tell which one is real and which one is fake?"
at least thunder and lightning are real, can't say the same for resurrections.
Jesus was my co-pilot.
...but then the plane crashed and we had to eat him.
rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father.
So, is that why there's always a fresh supply of god-gibbets for the cannibal faithful? Does he sit at the right hand of the father so he can just lean over and stick a fork or a straw in whenever he's peckish?
In truth, it just makes you look really, really dumb to us.
so sayeth the Heddle, better known as the Metatron, as well as the voice of all people who have ever claimed the title "Christian".
would that one day, the Heddle would realize just how much of the world he hasn't seen.
You are deluding yourself. Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays. This is such a common, blatant error--I am truly curious as to why would it give you a sense of superiority to assume that you know this but we don't? Pop psychology would suggest that you must be very insecure. In truth, it just makes you look really, really dumb to us.
We know, heddle, everybody looks really really dumb to you. You have no other mode of address. So, it must be obvious to you too, that dead and resurrected gods are a dime a dozen, so the story of dead and resurrected Jesus is no less a plagiarism than any other holiday.
So, how about it, heddle, are you going to teach science to Alan Clarke, and get him to admit his creationism just makes Christians look as stupid as you insist they are not, because only smart theists like you can do that while dumb as bricks atheists can't? Or are you just going to continue to behave like the cranky holier-than-thou jerk taking regular dumps here, as usual?
alert("hello");
hahahahaha
heddle wrote:
Are you serious? The majority of Christians know virtually nothing about their own religion, let alone those their organisation - created to worship someone they call 'the prince of peace' - destroyed as its adherents forced it on the unwilling under pain of death and torture.
Check out what this Christian site has to say about such things. A sample:
Yeah, Christians are really well-informed about their religion...
Wowbagger @ #142
Ah, I've not heard him before. That was good.
I've found the opposite actually; that many Christians are genuinely surprised that these holidays have pagan origins. Though I think it's just out of general ignorance, it's not like the church goes around advertising the fact.
He's one of my all-time favourites. There's plenty on YouTube; check out 'Miss Misery', which was Oscar-nominated from Good Will Hunting.
Then heddle and his stunningly sophisticated Christians must also regard the gospels are wall-to-wall bricolage, a record of plundered mythological tropes from one end of the Silk Road to the other, with the serial numbers only occasionally filed off.
why would it give you a sense of superiority to assume that you know this but we don't?
I'll just assume you know you're deluding yourselves every bit as much as we do.
I'll just assume you know you're deluding yourselves every bit as much as we do.
That's just it.
Heddle's forte IS projection.
you really can't assume he has the slightest clue outside of his own personal intuition, as he has demonstrated time and again.
It would have been funnier if the pic were of a cross made out of two middle fingers.
Y'know on Stargate SG-1 ... Thor is this little grey alien dude... who helps out O'Neill and the others ... but he does project a hologram of himself and the big hammer wielding dude we all know and love!
Thor was a great friend to the people... he brought the rains, and died a warriors death battling the Midgard Serpent at Ragnarock!
All hail Thor... God of Thunder (and Rock and Roll)!
Wowbagger, OM,
Bullshit.
True, I have no idea what percentage of Christians know about the co-opting of pagan festivals for Christian holidays—I suspect, as this falls in the common knowledge category, that it would be roughly the same as the percentage of unbelievers who know. Although the evidence on here, circumstantially, plus anecdotally, is that it is higher. That is—I rarely meet a Christian, other than a child learning for the first time, who was surprised or gave it a second thought. While on this site you routinely have pinheads presenting the information as if it were some recent anthropological discovery that very few people knew—an not knowing that something you know is common knowledge, and presenting it like a juicy nugget of new information, is a form of ignorance.
But on here, many like to argue stereotypes, particularly the stereotype of the dumb, buck-toothed, mouth breathing Christian who knows nothing about his own religion. (Often augmented with too-good-to-be-true anecdotes (that is, fantasies) about how with one zinging question from their vast knowledge base: You didn’t know Christmas was a pagan holiday, did you? they leave Christians speechless as the turn and strut away in victory.)
This stereotype is no more accurate that other stereotypes such as: amoral, hedonistic atheists; promiscuous, child-molesting homosexuals; or those applied to African Americans or Moslems. That is the playground of more than a few on Pharyngula, and that is the intellectual company they like to keep. It is the province of ignoramuses.
Kel,
Are you kidding? You haven’t been to many churches have you? I can’t tell you how many sermons I have heard telling parishioners to avoid those aspects of the holidays carried over from pagan festivals. Why do you think Christians would be surprised to learn that the Christmas trees and the eggs and bunnies were vestiges of preexisting festivals? Do you believe that we teach kids in Sunday School that the toddler Jesus went on easter egg hunts?
#39:
The American writer David Sedaris has a funny essay about his time in a French class in Paris as he and his fellow students try to get across the concept of Easter, in fractured French, to a skeptical Moroccan immigrant ("He call his self Jesus, and then he be die one day on two . . . morsels of . . . lumber") -- made worse for Sedaris when it turns out that his French teacher has never heard of the Easter Bunny, either.
The French, it turns out, have an Easter Bell, which flies in from Rome. It's all frickin' hilarious.
(You can find the story, "Jesus Shaves", in his book Holidays on Ice.)
Why are people here talking as if Ragnarök was something that supposedly happened in the past? It is exactly like Revelations-- an event supposed to take place in the future, with the outcome already ordained by the Fates.
The survivor of Ragnarok, btw, is Baldur, the son of Odin (god of war) who will bring peace, wisdom and prosperity. He died, run through with a bough of mistletoe, and stays with Hel until the gates of the underworld open and Heimdall sounds his horn.
One end times tends to sound pretty much like another, except that Baldur's reign sounds like it's probably better than the dictator-Jesus post Armageddon.
Samantha, 'eschatology' sounds so much more erudite than 'end times mythos', and Armageddon is a place not an event, unlike Ragnarök.
Still, good point.
I dunno; after the Rapture a heck of a lot of dumbass Christians would be gone; it could only be better for their absence.
I would suspect that the vast majority of people, i.e., the ones who never read a book after leaving school, know nothing about the co-opting of pagan festivals. They may have heard that Christmas was originally a solstice festival but Easter?
Easter's in the Bible, man. Them pagans had nothing to do with Easter. The gospels describe the whole Easter thing from the Last Supper to the resurrection. Yeah, the Last Supper was a Passover meal, but Jesus and the Apostles were Jews. Passover originated in Exodus, the whole Jews escaping from Egypt thing. Nothing pagan there.
I think heddle's understanding of what most Christians know is a bit of wishful thinking.
Don't forget this one:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8148/1237779011268.jpg
Ah, so that's how you embed pictures.
Indeed. Can you not, though? PZ does tell us we shouldn't from time to time, but I guess it's been a while since he's mentioned it.
I guess our experiences are different. I've scarcely met a Christian who has understood where the traditions came from and how they've been adapted. I've even been told by a Christian that anyone who isn't Christian shouldn't be allowed to celebrate Christmas or Easter because those are religious holidays.
I'm not doubting your experience at all btw. Just saying that if there is a strong focus on the pagan roots of tradition, it's not something well advertised or well-known here. Hell, we are talking about people who use that there are 7 days in a week as proof of the bible's accuracy so I really don't hold much hope for a lot of general people. If they can believe that the world is 6000 years old and that humans were hand-crafted from dirt, then what chance does a historian have in convincing them otherwise?
heddle,
What need does an atheist have for knowledge of Christianity? If the proportion of Christians who know little about their own religion is equal to that of what non-Christians know about it then the Christians are ignorant.
It's like saying that because local children in Darfur can't read English it's okay if local children in Skokie, Illinois* can't read English. It's not.
Did you even go to the site I linked to? Here it is again:
http://executableoutlines.com/top/bibillit.htm
It's a Christian site, bemoaning biblical illiteracy, with information obtained by actual surveys taken by Christians.
You're an academic; do you live in a college town? If so, did you ever stop to think that perhaps your congregation might possess above-average levels of scholarship?
Is the Christianity of a person suspect if they, in fact, do not know that all of its festivals are 'borrowed' from other cultures? Does Christianity require scholarship? Are you required to pass some kind of history of Christianity test before you're admitted to a congregation?
Anecdotal, but I'll mention it anyway: I work with a person, a Christian, who was surprised when she found out that Buddhism and Christianity weren't the same thing. This same person tried to tell me that she wasn't a Protestant, she was an Episcopalian.
If I were to come up to you and say 'I am a Christian', would you require anything else of me to accept that claim other than my word? No, you wouldn't. Indepth knowledge is not a requirement; hell, for most of them it's the only reason they are Christians - because if they knew - or had to know - much more about it beyond the happy-clapping, sanctimonious hypocrisy and Pascal's Wager, they wouldn't bother.
Wake up, heddle. Just because you can tell your Jesus' ass from his elbow doesn't mean all of you co-religionists can.
Bullshit indeed.
*I picked this for no reason other than it's a town in the US I know the name of; I have no knowledge of low literacy amongst its children. If this causes any residents of Skokie, Illinois any distress I apologise.
But you said you did -- "Most of us are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays". Folks here have hard data on what Christians actually know -- do you have any contradictory surveys? Or will you just man up and admit that, in this particular instance, you were relying on personal opinion and anecdotal evidence that is not supported by more formally collected data (or, in other words, you were talking out of your ass)?
This doesn't sound right. The crypto* Southern Baptist church near me sent out junk mail invitations. There is a sunrise service and two Easter egg hunts. The kids will probably also get a chocolate bunny or two. Oestre, is the goddess of dawn and fertily, all straight paganism. Not that there is anything wrong with it.
If you throw out the pagan aspects, the xmas tree, reindeer, lights, bunnies, eggs, and even the date of xmas all go out the window. Virtually no one has bothered.
They did change Halloween to a Harvest celebration but they still have carved pumpkins and candy.
* They call themselves a "Community church" but really have links to Southern Baptists. They tend to hide that name out here on the WC. It is bad marketing these days for a religion.
Echo what others said. Most fundies are profoundly ignorant of xianity which is why their version looks 180 degrees askew from the older protestant ones. The Rapture Freaks are the worst. Most Rapture ideation is a modern made up invention. To take one example, the only people leaving early are "144,000 male Jewish virgins" according to Revelations. Going to be hard even finding that number these days. Who in the hell wants to be a virgin, average age will probably be about 10.
This is a stupid criterion anyway. What is so good about being a virgin? Maybe they are too young, or ugly, or gay, or hate women, or are too shy and busy playing Dungeons and Dragons to meet women.
All those Rapture Monkeys sitting around in a daze waiting for god to show up and take them away are going to be disappointed. Only 144,000 are leaving early, Jewish, Xian male virgins. I doubt there are that many in the world today, since most Jews don't believe in "the Lamb".
What a stupid way to waste your life, believing something made up recently based vaguely on someone's drug trip 2,000 years ago. If this isn't wacko ignorance, what is?
Wowbagger, OM
I didn't say that atheists know as much about, say, Christian Theology as Christians--they clearly do not. The co-opting of festivals is not a theological question--it is a rather mundane well-known historical fact. It's something you learn in school. Saying that the percentage of Christians who know this is to first order the same as the percentage of atheists (I actually suspect it is higher, for reasons mentioned) is like saying to first order each group knows more or less equally well who the first president was or who the current Secretary of State is.
You need to wake up. Just because it's kind of fun to assume most Christians are dummies doesn't make it so. Yes it makes the job of criticizing them much easier--but it is no better and just as anit-intellectual as the stereotypes of atheists that you encounter on fundie forums. Have you been to them? You get exactly the same kind of arguments and anecdotes that you often see here. He he. I said to this stupid atheist X, Y and Z--his jaw dropped to the ground! It was great! Ooh, I love to hit atheists with this argument--they never know how to respond! They never know how to explain why if eveolution is true why don't all the strong people kill all the weak--it's so fun to watch them squirm! Many of the arguments Christianity and about Christians on this site are of equivalent caliber.
And I am not the exception--I am not exceptionally knowledgeable about my faith--fairly average, I would guess.
Tulse,
That's right--in my experience of the Christians I encounter very rarely is any adult Christian surprised regarding pagan influences. It's simply common knowledge. That said, I don't know what the percentage is. Is it 85, 90? 95? I don't know. That is not inconsistent.
Hard data my ass. I read that survey, which contained no methodology, and did not compare Christians to a control group of atheists. And it was clearly a combination of multiple surveys, mostly questions asked of Americans....
From the survey:
You haven’t been to many churches have you?
One church is too many. A church with heddle in it is too ludicrous to think about. Probably wears a lab coat with his Sunday School vestments. Otherwise, cathedrals are a waste of perfectly good architecture, while the ones in which heddle is likely to lurk are an affront to it.
As for the intelligence of the average Christian, the funniest opening for HBO's 6 Feet Under ever was this one: death by rapture.
I didn't say that atheists know as much about, say, Christian Theology as Christians--they clearly do not.
Atheists clearly know more about theology than Christians, because the way it works with intelligent Christians is that the more they learn about Christianity, the more likely they are to become atheists. Look up the word apostate heddle, you clown.
Heddle, Google is your friend -- here are some links that come up on the first page of results for "christians 'bible literacy' survey":
"Only two of 10 people participating in a recent Gallup survey correctly identified who delivered the Sermon on the Mount [...] he recently gave a simple quiz on Bible facts to people at his own church, Orchard View Congregational Church. The average score was just 40 percent"
"Bible illiteracy is a major problem in churches in the United States. That's the message from Back to the Bible's President and Bible Teacher Woodrow Kroll." (The survey report this claim is based on is here.)
"large numbers of Americans, just like people in the other eight countries surveyed, mistakenly thought that Jesus had authored a book of the Bible, and couldn’t correctly distinguish between Paul and Moses in terms of which figure belongs to the Old Testament."
OK, so that's several sources that indicate lack of basic familiarity by Christians. In many cases these were specifically given to believers, and not to the general public (which, of course, overwhelmingly self-identifies as Christian in the US).
Unless you have actual data that contradicts this, your assertions are simply not supported. At the very least admit that, and admit that your views are coloured by your own personal experience and knowledge and aren't an objective assessment of the question.
Tulse,
The first link. What was the quiz--and how do the results compare to a control group of atheists? After all, that is the question here--the oft-repeated claim that atheists know more about Christianity than Christians do. As I said in my previous post, biblical illiteracy is indeed a problem. But does the first link show that atheists know more that Christians about Christianity? It does not.
Ditto for the second link. Nothing to back up any claim that atheists know Christianity better. And nothing in either link to support the theory that Christians are not aware of the pagan festival roots of the customs of Christmas and Easter.
The third link (not counting the survey report) didn't work for me, kept getting a Network Timeout, but the text you providided large numbers of Americans... again speaks to a national biblical illiteracy.
So this statement you make
do not support your claims. If you find a survey that indicates that a randomly selected group of self-identified Christians scored lower on a quiz of biblical knowledge than a randomly selected group of atheists, that would be something. And if you find one that indicates a group of church-going Christians scored lower than a group of atheists, then you'll have a strong case. But you have not even found the weaker.
All you have found are reports suggesting that religious types are appalled with the lack of knowledge of the bible, even among Christians--which is hardly surprising.
Meh. The majority of everyone, everywhere, is ignorant. So I agree with heddle *grumble* that the initial claim took the form of a backslapping stereotype of poor, dumb Christians, which is patronizing, self-congratulatory, looks bad, and is a tactical error.
However, this
And I am not the exception--I am not exceptionally knowledgeable about my faith--fairly average, I would guess.
I do not buy.
Dude, you maintain an apologetics blog. You read Hebrew and Biblical Greek. That is far above the average level of scholarship for a lay Christian.
heddle:
When are you going to grow some ovaries?
the oft-repeated claim that atheists know more about Christianity than Christians do
--is supported daily on these pages by the way Christian apostates who have become atheists stomp all over the theistic science denialists who stump into the Pharyngula Saloon to teach us heathens whut's whut, the same ignoramuses whose nonsense heddle never, ever, challenges.
the theory that Christians are not aware of the pagan festival roots of the customs of Christmas and Easter.
When did this morph from observation to theory?
Gallup does a lot of these surveys that heddle just can't wrangle his multiple thumbs on a browser to locate. They're the ones monitoring the steep decline in the number of Christians who read the Bible daily, if at all (hurray!). Christianity is more often inherited uncritically and unexamined, than adopted after rigorous comparison shopping among all world-views. Don't think about it too hard heddle, or you'll have to get even madder at us when you can no longer cling so tenaciously to your fairy tales.
Bravo Ken Cope! Exactly what I wanted to say to totally depraved Heddle. *applause*
No it isn't -- I at least have been very clear that the issue was your claim that, and I quote, "Most of us [i.e., Christians] are quite aware that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays". That was the claim I was challenging, not that atheists are somehow better informed than Christians on this matter, or on matters of the bible in general. The issue of atheists' knowledge is completely irrelevant to the issue of Christians' knowledge about the roots of their own religion, and it is this latter issue to which the various surveys I noted speak.
Again, you've provided no data whatsoever to back up your notion that Christians are well-informed about their own religion and the origins of its holidays. The surveys I've pointed to are not ideal, but they certainly are strongly suggestive that the deep knowledge you appear to claim for them simply doesn't exist. If you want to present some alternative data, go right ahead -- you presumably can use Google as well as the rest of us. But until there is some other hard evidence, your claim is just your opinion, an opinion that is opposed by empirical research.
Tulse,
OK, If you want to confine it to the narrow question of pagan origins of Christmas/Easter customs, then the surveys you linked are worse than "not ideal" (which is already a generous assessment.) They are totally meaningless, since none ask that question or anything close. You have no data pertaining to that particular question--and neither do I. Nor would I expect to, since it is common knowledge. Your anecdotal(generically--i.e. Pharyngula commenters) data seem to consist of encounters with random Christian bumpkins right out of central casting. Like the atheist cartoons of fundie forums. My anecdotal data come from, oh, on the order of a few thousand Christians who, over the years, I have attended sermons with, where the pastor has pointed out, as a warning, those aspects of Christian holidays that have nothing to do with Christ but were co-opted for convenience and expediency.
CJO,
Anyone cam have a blog on any topic. And for the record I do not read Hebrew at all--and only a little biblical Greek. Mostly I rely on lexicons.
encounters with random Christian bumpkins right out of central casting
I must admit, that does leave out the stereotype of the unctuous blowhard with the self-hoisting petard...
So if they know about pagan roots, why is there such a fuss over Xmas being a midwinter festival ?
It should be moved to spring right away !
So you think that individuals' would be less likely to know about basic aspects of the Bible (such as whether Paul was in the Old Testament, and whether Jesus wrote any of the Gospels) that about the pagan connection to Christian holidays? Honestly?
Agreed -- there are no surveys I could find in my cursory search that address that particular issue directly. But, as noted above, I think the data that does exist is certainly strongly suggestive.
Which, of course, was my point.
Which, of course, is precisely the issue under debate. To simply re-assert this claim gets you nowhere.
No, it comes from about 20 years of being Catholic in Texas, including going to parochial school and Catholic high school. I'm not clear why I should take my experiences as any less valid than yours.
In any case, I'm really not interested in going back and forth on this. If you really want to believe what you believe about the knowledge Christians have, that's fine. But I think we both agree that ultimately this is an empirical question, and while you have your experiences, I have mine and data that I think speaks to the issue. So unless you also have some hard empirical evidence, you're simply not going to convince me.
Tulse,
Not my intent to convince you of anything. My intent, as always on this site, is, when people are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures, to point out they are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures.
The bar is already ludicrously low for the subject of apologetics: chapbooks for the marks to turn to when "la-la-la" fails to drown out the faint but nagging voice of reason. Apologetics strives to turn even the most nagging case of cognitive dissonance into multi-part harmony.
My intent, as always on this site, is, when people are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures, to point out they are arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures, says heddle, arguing against a simpleminded, self-serving caricature of atheists arguing against simpleminded, self-serving caricatures.
Intent is one thing, but what heddle's consistent contributions here provide instead is the slow-burn exasperation of Edgar Kennedy, as his hat is set on fire and his lemonade stand pissed into. And he keeps coming back for more!
Heddle, you didn't answer my question.
If Xians are so aware that the winter solstice was a pagan festival and has nothing to do with the reported time of birth, why is there all the hoo ha about keeping it just for themselves and not allowing a greeting of Happy Holidays? Why do they keep the pagan trees and Celtic trappings?
Why don't you all just move your holiday back where it belongs and leave us to our Yule logs and Grog?
Brtiomart,
Are you talking about the war on Christmas? If so you are making a common mistake: to assume that those that make a great deal of noise represent the majority. They don't. That would be like my assuming most atheists are like, say Holbach or Nerd of the Redhead. They aren't.
And it's actually not our holiday. The bible doesn't instruct us to celebrate Jesus' birth. We are to celebrate his death. Most people I know do not care one way or another whether a WalMart greeter says Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or Splendiferous Kwanzaa. In my family, we celebrate Christmas as a pagan holiday, acknowledging that it has little to to with Christianity.
Also, the war on Christmas noise is not made, for the most part, by those who are fighting, in a misguided way, for Christianity per se. It is made by those fighting the culture war. Fighting the culture war and defending the faith are not only not the same thing--they are, in my opinion, antithetical.
Calvin was, if I'm not mistaken, extremely suspicious of Christmas as a religious holiday. Most Christian sects that aren't Calvinist don't have that issue (with the exception of sects like the Jehovah's Witnesses). The fact that Calvinists are especially sensitized to the issue of the origin and appropriateness of traditional Christian holidays suggests that "most people you know" in a religious sense may not be all that representative of Christianity at large.
Tusle,
Which somehow invalidates my claim? And yet you are willing, I presume, to stake your claim that most Christians you know are representative?
And yet my group is one of Time Magazines 10 ideas changing the world right now! En Garde!
So all those church signs I see around Christmas saying "Jesus is the reason for the season" and "without Christ, there is no Christmas" are wrong? Not once have I ever seen a sign that's inclusive for other faiths or a reference to pagan history.
Kel,
Why should they? We are not inclusive of other faiths--Christianity is very exclusive--Jesus is the only way. And why should they make a reference to pagan history?--just to convince you they know it? Tell you what, come to my church next Christmas. I bet you'll hear about the pagan aspects of Christmas.
Which somehow invalidates my claim?
Specifically, it invalidates heddle's claim that the pagan origin of holidays Christians celebrate is common knowledge. Heddle's claim that it's common knowledge can't be inferred, as he demands of us, just because the subject is a frequent hobbyhorse ridden in sermons in the butt-ugly cult to which he subscribes. Only heddle wants us to think his cult is representative of Christians.
Oh noes! It's the devastating misspelled name assault! Watch out, Brtiomart, and Tusle! Soon, you'll be expected to say, like me, "Alla time I say something, he no say nothing! How come a he no say nothing when I say a something?"
And so is amortality for celebutards. If heddle's stupid cult is changing the world, it certainly isn't an improvement.
For a minute there, I thought heddle had begun to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but that wasn't His Noodly Appendage.
I'm saying that if they do know it, they don't advertise it. Again, just because your church does it, it doesn't make it very representative of society as a whole. I'd be willing to bet most people don't know the origins of Christmas, and just because your church tells it, it doesn't mean that most churches tell it.
So, 500 years of theology is about equal in importance to Simon Cowell's botox treatments?
Sounds about right.
Why should they? We are not inclusive of other faiths--Christianity is very exclusive--Jesus is the only way.
Jesus is the only way to what? Waste your life trying to make such a claim make any sort of sense?
After having stolen whatever was successfully bringing in the marks to all the other religions, Christianity declares it's the one true way. I'm very exclusive too; I exclude Christianity from serious consideration as anything better than plagiarized nonsense.
I'm with Groucho, who would never join any club that would have him as a member. I can say with little fear of error that heddle knows fuckall about any of the other religious ideas that predate, or were contemporaneous with, Christianity and its explosion into today's myriad worldwide cults, all at each others throats.
I really don't get how anyone can want calvinism to be true. It's as bad as the Jehovah's Witnesses. So much for the idea of a loving God...
Let me get this straight, Heddles experiences in his church count as evidence, and that's the evidence we're supposed to believe?
I've got the same experiance and decades of going to church, does that mean I'm an expert too?
does that mean I'm an expert too?
You question heddle's au-THOR-i-tay?
Easter? Isn't that when Jesus leaves his tomb, and if he sees his shadow, we have another 2000 years before the second coming?
Of course, if he sees his shadow...get ready to be raptured!
Aargh! I fucked up the joke. I mean if he DOESN'T see his shadow, another 2000 years before the...
Oh, never mind.
Kel,
What does wanting something to be true have to do with it?
oriole,
Worse than that--it's an old joke. To repeat it is unforgivable, in a comedic sense.
Everything.
What does wanting something to be true have to do with it?
Two things. In the absence of any evidence, that's all you've got, and, in heddle's case, now we know what kind of bottom-feeder it takes to want Calvinism to be true, out of every other competing variety of religious claim which has neither more nor less evidence for any congruence with reality.
heddle wrote:
Emphasis mine.
Sure, regular church-going Christians would be biblically literate - but is it a requirement of Christianity to go to church? Does every single Christian in the world attend church a regular basis? If you are identified as not attending church on a regular basis, do you have your Christianity revoked?
This is my point, heddle. Membership of plenty of Christian congregations requires nothing more than answering 'yes' to the question 'are you a Christian?' when asked. Nothing more.
Whether or not you consider that to be Christianity is beside the point, as it describes plenty of Christians.
it's an old joke
So is Christianity.
As a woman I'm not allowed to question Heddles authority, remember.
Of course Heddles church tells the members christmas is pagan. Calvin despised the catholics. That has little to do with what the man on the street type christian knows about their on faith or scripture knowledge.
For you to challenge what we witness here almost on a daily basis of ignorant christians as not relevant just doesn't cut it Heddle. I've been shocked at how ignorant they actually are.
Wowbagger, OM
Don't be silly. I think you knew what I meant. But that would lead us to a long discussion, which we have had many times (we not meaning you and I, but Pharyngulites and I.) That is, this is a nation of self-identified Christians, which is not the same as Christians. There are family, peer, and cultural pressures not to mention a lack of ego and self-esteem (for some) that results in many Americans claiming claiming to be Christian. The hope, which I think we share, is that the "new atheism" will work to remove any remaining stigma associated with being an atheist, so "self-identified" becomes more accurate. So, no--it is not necessarily required to attend a local church (although you can make a biblical case for it) and there are non-Christians who attend church regularly--nevertheless "regular church goers" is a more reliable set of true Christians that "self-identifying" Christians. In my opinion. And by common sense, I'd argue.
Oh brother.
Not even my 10 tined manure fork can pick that up in one scoop.
heddle wrote:
Ah, but they consider themselves Christians, the government considers them Christians, and any Christian trying to argue for the numbers of Christians as evidence of Christianity's validity, heddle - even if you don't. You're stuck with them - and their demonstrated biblical illiteracy and ignorance of Christian history whether you like it or not.
Patricia, you are right. Heddle has been leaving pile after pile.
Heddle, you can convince me your god exists as soon as you produce proper physical evidence for one. That is the proper scientific attitude. No evidence, no conclusions. I just set the bar higher than "look around you" or "look in the mirror". I need a real eternally burning bush, just like you should.
Oh, Patricia. When Heddle uses a word, it means whatever he chooses it to mean.
Take the word Christian, for example. Ordinarily, it means someone who self-identifies as a Christian. But, if Heddle so chooses, it can also mean "someone who self-identifies as a Christian and attends church with X frequency."
(What is that frequency, by the way? How many visits to church per year, for example, does it take before the number of "Christians" who will answer that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife will be "none, except perhaps for the disabled," as Heddle so confidently asserted in #176? Come to think of it, are those who attend church with the required frequency, yet are too severely disabled to understand the pagan origins of Christian holidays actually "Christians" under Heddle's definition?)
Guys, it's very very simple.
Heddle, like every other type of Christian fundie, only believes his branch of Christianity to be the real branch.
Ergo, if you are not a regular church-going person, who attends a "New Calvinist" church, where the pastor regularly goes on about how Christmas is a pagan holiday, then you aren't a "Real Christian(TM)".
So, obviously Real Christians(TM) know about pagan holidays.
Now, New Calvinists are mostly Baptists (as opposed to Neo-Calvinists, who are mainly Lutheran). Only about 1 in 5 Christians are Baptists in the US (vs, say, 1 in 3 Christians who are Catholic). Not all Baptists are New Calvinists; I don't have stats, but it's not likely to be more than 50%, otherwise there wouldn't be a separate Baptist identity to be distinguished.
Now, only about 10% of all Christians are regular church goers - even the big occasions like Easter only get in about 1/3rd. I'll give the New Calvinists bonus points for piety, and say that about 25% of New Calvinists are regular every-Sunday type church goers.
So... 20% * 50% * 25% = 1 in 40. 1 in 40 Christians would be Real Christians(TM). The other 39 in 40 are ignorant heathens who mean well but fail to worship God correctly, and are therefore going to hell - it doesn't matter what they know.
As the Rabbi said "They all worship God in their own way - I worship God in His". Meant as a joke, but it does sum up the religious viewpoint.
Without the want of it to be true, how can you keep holding it as true? Do you sit there in church wishing that total depravity and predestination weren't reality? Because both of those ideas are pretty fucked-up ways of looking at life.
I agree with you Nerd, and this is one of the reasons I can never believe again.
If gawd could walk and talk with Adam and Eve, Enoch and Moses, why can't he show up now? Why didn't he show up on 9/11 or after Katrina, the tsunami, and the earth quakes? Must be embarrassing as hell for the pope to try and explain why gawd is pissed at Italy.
Heddles religion of choice is even sicker. Check out the doctrine of total depravity.
Yes, you'd surely need a manure fork that goes up to eleven.
Do you sit there in church wishing that total depravity and predestination weren't reality?
Well said Kel. So far as I can tell, heddle thinks it's fucking great that in the afterlife, there will be cake, and we will be baked. Heddle sits there in church celebrating Calvinism's total depravity and predestination.
Lowell - Oh geepers, how could I have missed that?
Of course! I'm just a silly, sinful woman.
*wink* *wink* :D
Emmet, OM - You'll be going to hell for that little suggestion, bucko.
For verily, thou shalt not make an 11 tined manure fork, for that eth an un-natural number and an abomination. 12 tines thou may maketh, for that ith the number of our lawd.
Don't get me started on 13 tines, that's witchcraft.
The part that's really strange about total depravity and predestination is that it doesn't matter in the least how you live your life. You could be a concentration camp commandant and if you hit the lotto, you're in. Or you could give all your possessions to the poor, visit the sick every hour on the half-hour, never say a cruel word about anyone, and help little old ladies across the street in your spare time but if you're not lucky, it's the lake of fire for you.
The part that's really strange sociopathic about total depravity and predestination is that it doesn't matter in the least how you live your life.
HTH!
You all notice Heddle disappears after doctrine comes up.
If he truly believes in this total depravity crap I don't know how he survives
If he truly believes in this total depravity crap I don't know how he survives
Because the reason we point and mock and scorn heddle is never because heddle is wrong; it is because of the doctrine of total depravity that we are blind to heddle's dazzling brilliance.
If I ever encounter heddle in Real Life I'll be unable to avoid going all Mr. Creosote at him.
How can beliefs like that flourish? It seems that either there has to be the desire for the belief to be true, or that the belief is tightly coupled with another belief that is desirable. If a belief has neither the desire to be true or is tightly coupled with another belief, then why would anyone want to believe it? I don't get how any Calvinist could wish total depravity or predestination to be true (or any Christian wishing for original sin) unless those beliefs are core to their belief in God. To kill one is to kill the other...
If he truly believes in this total depravity crap I don't know how he survives
That's easy. It doesn't apply to him. He's one of the Elect. He just gets too look down on the unsaved. His wealth and career success prove this to him.
Ken Cope:
The cake is a lie!
heldde:
No, I am willing to hold my view based on the Christians I know (who are primarily Catholic, and yes, therefore more representative of "average" US Christians than Calvinist Baptists) and survey data.
You all notice Heddle disappears after doctrine comes up.
Two explanations for this occur to me. He has a life, such as it is (Ew!). Also, it's possible that enough of heddle's adversaries here have triggered in him sufficient cognitive dissonance that it has become necessary to consign them here to the place where you and I have been wished away to, here in the cornfield, where we who are not worthy of the scornful contemplation of the heddle most happily reside. He doesn't even have to declare victory before he scarpers; heddle's opponents merely cease to be.
Wowbagger, OM,
Where is that written in stone? I don't have to accept someone's claim to be a Christian because the government accepts their claim. Does that even make sense to you? Mormans and JWs claim to be Christian--but I certainly do not accept their claim--nor is there some law of nature that says I have to accept it. Especially not because the government accepts it. (Curious--do you accept Dembski as a scientist? Ken Hamm? They both claim they are scientists--so are you required to accept their claim?)
Nerd,
Why should I convince you? I have no desire to try. That is impossible--and as such, it is irrational for it to be my goal. I'll present the gospel to you--but I can no more convince you that it's true than I can convince my dog that it is true.
Tis Himself,
Oh brother.
It's funny how the two complaints about Calvinism (presented with the same ignorant certainty of the YEC who smugly asks: what good is half an eye? Gotcha!) are exactly opposite. Some will say, as if nobody ever considered it: that means we are just puppets while others say, again as if nobody ever thought of it before, then it doesn't matter what you do, you might as well do whatever you like -- as I mentioned, just the opposite. One complains we have no free will. The other complains that we might as well exploit our free will to the max and be libertines. Both expecting that Augustine would say: "Criminy, how come I never thought of that flaw!"
Kel,
Because it is true, independent of whether I want it to be true. Another example comes from the end times--I would like the Left Behind view to be true, because a rapture would be cool--but I don't think it is. So I don't claim it is true, just because I want it to be true. Is this really a problem?
No I love those doctrines--I don't know how my Arminian brothers live at peace wondering if their confession was sincere enough. I think the doctrine of total depravity is the most comforting of all--knowing that the only thing I contribute to my salvation is my sin is liberating. And I agree with Spurgeon who said: "I'm so glad God chose me before the foundation of the world, rather than waiting to see how I turned out."
Woah, that's really really fucked-up.
Because it is true, independent of whether I want it to be true.
You have no FCCing way of knowing it to be true, demonstrating it to be true, or showing that it is even FCCing reasonable to believe it is true, and yet, here you are, godbotting about it on an atheist blog and pretending that you are exactly the sort of champion of science that PZ can never be.
"I'm so glad God chose me before the foundation of the world, rather than waiting to see how I turned out."
I'm of two minds. That is either testimony that a God who would choose heddle so spend eternity with is too sociopathic to exist, or evidence that God is a coprophiliac.
heddle wrote:
Because of the simple fact that their claim to 'true' Christianity is no more or less compelling than your own - or can you provide objective evidence to the contrary?
You don't want to like the fact that they interpret the material in a different way, fair enough; that's up to you. If you want to say that Calvinist Baptists of certain sects do or don't do something then that's fine, too. But don't come here arguing that 'Christians' do or don't do certain things when that demonstrably isn't the case.
Sorry, but you don't get to decide who is or isn't Christian - unless you can find a way to convince us (and, more importanly them) that you're correct and they aren't.
Wait, how does Heddle know that God has chosen him for eternal salvation? Does heddle have access to the list of who is eternally saved and who is eternally tortured? So I guess Heddle doesn't believe in a loving God - just one who likes to send people to be tortured whether they like it or not...
heddle:
No, you don't have to accept it, but the word label "Christian", as defined by society, covers them. They follow the word of Jesus Christ, as they interpret it - thus they are Christian. Even the Mormons fit in, because the scripture revealed to Joseph Smith is meant to be Jesus' scripture. Muslims do not, though they recognise Jesus as a prophet of God, because they place Mohammed higher.
You can reject that if you want, but none-the-less the label "Christian" covers them.
No, I don't. Again, due to the social definition. To be a scientist, you have to be practising science. This is a social activity - it involves doing research, presenting theories to your peers, and supporting those theories with evidence. Dembski and Hamm both fail to do this. I'll leave the concrete examples to those readers of this blog who are scientists themselves.
... but I can no more convince you that it's true than I can convince my dog that it is true.
Ah, the smug assertion of superiority, as well as the implicit insult: "You're as dumb as my dog!". Oh, we're hurt.
All it takes to convince us is evidence, heddle. Put forth a convincing explanation of why, say, your flavour of religion is more valid than, oh, Scientology (let's make it easy for you).
While you're at it, let's put into play my new favourite touchstone of open-mindness - what evidence would it take you to abandon your faith (possibly for another faith; nobody is asking for atheism here)?
I love how heddle whines that everyone gets total depravity and predestination wrong but he doesn't bother to explain it to us. Us iggerant heathens is too iggerant to be edjumacted about heddle's brand of irrationality. Why am I not surprised that someone as supercilious and condescending as His Highness Heddle the Great can only sneer but not teach?
When I consider this line from heddle, "knowing that the only thing I contribute to my salvation is my sin is liberating." in contrast with these:
then I can only conclude that to heddle, heaven is a cosmic Milgram experiment, where it's OK for heddle to turn the dial past eleven on a son, or a daughter, or a beloved parent or a friend whom God has not chosen to be among The Elect, and then God will dry heddle's crocodile tears, and scoop out the last vestiges of heddle's mere humanity so heddle won't have to pretend to be sad on our behalf anymore.
So it's predestined that people will end up in hell, yet it's still just? world champions of mental gymnastics those Calvinists...
Taking one last look in before saying night night...
I don't take one least bit of offense Heddle. Sorry about your luck. I spent 50 years being treated this way. I press you so that those younger than we are can see what total jerks good christian men are.
Nicely played. Don't forget this, we'll have more rounds.
Kel@238 -
Hmm... having just gone through the Wikipedia entry on Calvinism, I'd guess that Heddle knows God has chosen him because of his faith.
Let me see if I've got the logic right: based on the doctrine of Total Depravity, humans are inherently sinful and that "all people ... are morally unable to choose to follow God and be saved because they are unwilling to do so out of the necessity of their own natures".
However, God, because of His Sovereign Grace, is a merciful and loving God, and even though He would be fully justified to let all of Humanity roast in Hell forever, He has chosen to save some of us. Picked at random - after all, by definition there is nothing you can do to make yourself worthy of salvation. This is the doctrine of Unconditional Election. God picks you out, you will be saved.
Now, Jesus died for our sins, apparently, but rather than dying for everyone's sins, He only died for the elect. Not that God couldn't have had Jesus die for everyone; He's certainly powerful enough to do that, but He's just not that merciful. Hey, it's a Divine Miracle that He's letting anyone off the hook, after all. So, according to the doctrine of Limited Atonement, Jesus only died for the sins of the elect. Oh, and God knew in advance who the elect will be, so he knew exactly how much atonement would be needed.
Now, God's a powerful being, so once He elects you, you've got no choice. You can try to resist if you like, but eventually God will wear you down, and you will heed the call of the gospel and develop a "saving faith". This is the doctrine of Irresistible Grace. So the only way you can have real faith is if God makes you, because you can't do it yourself. The fact of faith is the proof that God loves you.
A nice side point here is that numerous sinners will, despite not being able to have real faith, don the trappings and lifestyle of faith, presumably to try and fool God. Thus, if someone falls away from the Faithful, it's because they were either secretly a sinner all along, or because God will call them back later. The classic "not a True Christian" argument. This is the fifth and final doctrine of Calvinism, the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints.
So, to sum up: if you have faith, you're saved. You can't have faith without God's help. If God is giving you help, you can't backslide. If you do backslide, God will bring you back, or he was never with you anyway. Oh, and if he isn't with you, you don't have faith, and you're going to Hell.
How is this not a license to do whatever you feel like? Want to rape a child? Sure, go ahead - if God's on your side, he'll fix your faith up afterwards anyway, and if he's not, what difference does it make?
How can any sane person accept this sick creed?
How can any sane person accept this sick creed?
Hey, no fair with the rhetorical questions!
How can any sane person believe that they are totally depraved? And worse - born that way. It's sick.
@ #180,
An example of unforgivable ignorance that was excluded from your list!
"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me."
Congressman to Dr. Davis Edwards, head of the Joint National Committee on Language, on the debate regarding the need for the US to be multi-lingual.
Source: The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said by Ross and Kathryn Petras
To be just a little fair, Patricia - the Doctrine of Total Depravity doesn't mean you are totally and utterly sick, evil and twisted. The "total" means that it's in every part of you, but doesn't quantify how much. It seems to me to be a tarted up version of Original Sin.
It probably didn't sound quite so aggressive in the original German.
(Oh, I've changed my handle slightly to stand out from the other Roberts around the place...)
RobertDW, #239,
Sorry, no. (The bible says quite explicitly that that definition is wrong.) If someone says: "according to my interpretation of the bible, Elvis was Jesus. I believe in and follow the Elvis-Christ, therefore I am a Christian" then I am not only free but obliged to say: you are not.
So for Christians it is the individual's determination that matters: "I am a Christian, because I say I am." For a scientist, others make the determination: "You are not a scientist until we say you are a scientist." Convenient.
Well at least I'm consistent. I say someone is not a Christian if they do not exhibit evidence of being a Christian. And they are not a scientist if they do not exhibit evidence of being a scientist, regardless of what they call themselves. So I say Fred Phelps is not a Christians, and Ken Hamm is not a scientist, and don't really care if anyone takes exception.
You missed the boat. But then, looking down, I see that you had not yet read your Wiki article and arrived at a deep understanding of Calvinism. The dog comment was not an insult. It was meant to show that any attempt to convince Nerd (or anyone else) is as hopeless as attempting to convince my dog. Not because Nerd is stupid, but because an unregenerate man cannot be convinced, regardless of his IQ.
Same for you as for Nerd. I cannot convince you that Christianity is correct and Scientology is false. There are two things I can do: 1) present the gospel. I can't convince you, just present it and answer questions. 2) As an academic exercise, I can argue that Calvinism is a supportable interpretation of the bible. That is, I can't convince you to believe the bible. But if, for the sake of argument, we assume the bible is correct, then I can argue for Calvinism as opposed to other Christian theologies.
TisHimself, #240
I can teach just fine--ask me a question about Calvinistic doctrine and I'll be happy to answer. But when someone like RobertDW reads a Wikipedia entry and then asks a stupid question like: "How is this not a license to do whatever you feel like? Want to rape a child? Sure, go ahead - if God's on your side, he'll fix your faith up afterwards anyway, and if he's not, what difference does it make?" I have no more interest to answer seriously than most you would if a YEC came by and knew so little bio that he asked the famous "what good is half an eye?" question with a tone suggesting that he "knew" you didn't have an answer.
To be sure, stupid questions are fine. It's stupid questions in a gotcha! tone that I long ago learned to ignore. Perhaps I misinterpreted RobertDW's (#244) tone--but the child rape question is pretty much a dead giveaway. If someone asks, sincerely, "But doesn't Calvinism then give you license to sin as much as you like?" I'm happy to answer. As I am sure most on here would be happy to answer someone asking a sincere version of the half-an-eye question.
So if you have a question about Calvinist doctrine, ask away.
Wowbagger, OM #237
Again, not written in stone. Since I consider myself a Christian, I am allowed and even required (by my reading) to draw a circle of orthodoxy (for me it is roughly the Nicene creed) and say: if either (a) you are outside that circle or (b) you are inside that circle by display no signs of the fruits of the spirit-- then in either case I will not consider you a Christian. Sorry, I might be wrong, but I'll treat you as a non-believer. Others can (and should) do the same to me.
I am not obligated to convince you that, say, JWs are not Christian. I'll try if you are interested, on the basis of the bible, but at the end if you don't agree, then too bad. There is simply no inviolate law that says if X claims to be a Christian, all others who claim to be Christian must accept X's claim uncritically.
If the bible taught what you claim, then it would have said excommunication--which amounts to rejecting people even though they claim to be Christians-- is forbidden. Instead it condones the practice, within a system of checks and balances.
Some misunderstanding here. I do not think only Calvinists or Calvinist Baptists are Christians, or that all of them are Christians. But more importantly, most my time as a Christian (which I became as an adult), that is the longest run I spent in any one church, was in a non-Calvinist church where my Calvinistic views were in the minority. So my experience with what other Christians believe comes from, for the most part, fellowship with non-Calvinistic Christians. It is only recently, upon returning to Virginia, that I am in a self-described Calvinistic church. So when I say: "it would be rare for any of the thousands of Christian I have enjoyed fellowship with" to be unaware of the pagan origins of Christmas, I am mostly talking about non-Calvinists.
Heddle, my question was sincere if expressed in a tone of disgust.
How is Calvinism not a license to do what you feel like?
My logic is above. By my reading: you can't not be saved by your own actions - you need to be picked by God, and God will not pick you based on your own virtue (or sin). Without God picking you, you go to Hell. If God does pick you, then no matter what you want to do otherwise, you will ultimately end up with a perfect faith (and thus no longer _able_ to sin, presumably). Until you get to that sublime point (which is inevitable), you can backslide - God will still pick you up eventually.
So: nothing you do matters. You are saved or damned by the choice of God, and the virtue (or lack thereof) of your actions don't count. The only caveat is that when you eventually reach the state of grace, you can't sin.
What part of my logic is wrong? Bear in mind that my understanding of Calvinist doctrine is limited mostly to that Wikipedia article.
If no part of my logic is wrong, how is it not a license by God (as opposed to the social morals and constraints that bind, say, me) from doing something as bad as, oh, raping a child?
Also bear in mind that child rape has been condoned by numerous churches, particularly the Catholic church, as being doctrinally permitted in the past, so it's not an unrealistic question. Saudi culture today, backed by Islamic law, permits the "marriage" of an 8-year old girl to a 47-year old man, to cite a news story I read today.
Yes, Western social morals abhor child abuse today. But social morals are subject to change - exploitation of children 300 years ago wouldn't have raised an eyelid. Doctrinal morality should be more rigid. Nor is child rape against the Bible - in fact, it was the reward given to the soldiers of Israel. And yes, it's deliberately emotive.
If you want a less emotional sin, then how is it not an license to, say, commit embezzlement?
(Oh, and I'll be happy to answer why atheism is not a license to do what you feel like - I don't need religion to justify my morality)
RobertDW,
Actually it is, in fact in some ways it is exactly that—Calvinism has almost a libertine view of free will—but what you will feel like, if you are saved, is that you will desire to please God by glorifying him.
Let me be presumptuous and rephrase your question: How is Calvinism not a license to sin as much as like?
When the understanding of Calvinism is limited to the TULIP acrostic, then it is a fair question. A fuller understanding, not incorporated into TULIP, is that when men are regenerated they not only are given faith, they are radically changed. While still sinners, they have a desire to live for God's glory and they enjoy living for God's glory. While it is true that a saved person can commit the most horrible sins, and while it is also true that a saved person who commits horrible sins will be forgiven, it is also true that a saved person will want to please God and will enjoy pleasing God--which is incompatible with a lifestyle attitude: "why not sin to my heart's content?" Salvation comes with the promise not just of faith but also of repentance and sanctification, the latter meaning that the Holy Spirit will continue to increase one’s desire to obey God. Paul addresses this in several places in no uncertain terms. Anyone with an attitude "why not sin to my heart's content?" is displaying neither repentance, nor any sign of sanctification, nor any sign of a desire and joy to live for God's glory. In short, such a person shows no signs of being saved.
The doctrine of sanctification, and the concomitant desire to live for God's glory and to enjoy God, is not captured in the small thumbnail of the TULIP description of Calvinism.
No need, since I don't believe that and would never ask the question. The doctrine of Common Grace (well, one of a couple doctrines under that same name) teaches that all men, believers and unbelievers, have a moral compass provided by God. So I believe atheists have morality, provided by God, and therefore have no inclination to live as hedonists.
Hello Prof. Myers,
Your god may have a hammer, but mine has lightning... :-) Coming from Greece, I would probably have put Zeus instead of Thor in that picture.
Anyway, Greek Orthodox Christian Easter is one week later. So, in my part of the world, Jeebus has not yet become a zombie.
I've always hated Good Friday especially, for two main reasons: my mom does not cook, so I always had to procure food from outside sources, and two the church bells are ringing all day... I make it a point to try and eat meat on Good Friday, just to spite every believer. I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Greece, it is considered a major sin to eat meat on Good Friday.
Good thing about Easter, and working in a company, is that I have 2 extra days off, and can sleep. (Even if that company is partly mine...)
So then, like I said: you can do what you want, but if you've been fully saved, then you won't want to sin. Ergo, if you want to sin, you're not fully saved.
Well, at least your kind presumably doesn't bother with much in the way of missionary work. After all, people can't be saved, so why bother trying?
Oh, and you want to be a little careful with your words: hedonists live a lifestyle aimed at achieving as much pleasure as possible. By your own standards, Calvinists, living to worship God and enjoying doing so, are hedonistic, as they actively try to maximise their enjoyment.
(Not that there is anything wrong with hedonism... though what some people find pleasurable may well be wrong)
All that said - this viewpoint almost exactly captures the most abhorrent and disgusting thing about religion to me: the complete and utter abdication of personal responsibility. Nothing you do counts. No act of yours can make you worthy of salvation; once you've been picked (at random), no act of yours can make you worthy of damnation. Once you achieve that state of grace, you have no conscience, because nothing you do can be sin, because you can't sin. It's all God's choice, and you are just a slave. It makes me physically sick that someone can subscribe to such a viewpoint.
The ability to observe and reason is Man's greatest gift. Christianity in particular takes this gift and makes it a curse - not for nothing is it eating from the Tree of Knowledge that gets Adam kicked out of the garden. The Enlightenment has done more for humanity than anything ever given to us by religion.
RobertDW,
Perhaps counterintuitively, Calvinists are zealous for missionary work. Why? 1) Because we are under command to spread the gospel (to glorify God--leave the conversion to him) and 2) Because we enjoy spreading the gospel.
The difference with our non Calvinistic brothers is probably one of emphasis. We emphasize the message more than the response--while Arminian missionaries tend to focus on the response more than the message. In my opinion.
By your own standards, Calvinists, living to worship God and enjoying doing so, are hedonistic, as they actively try to maximise their enjoyment.
That is very insightful, and absolutely correct.
Some misconceptions: you are not picked at random. God has a plan. And of course you can and will sin.
I've seen this before. Earlier you were suggesting that we Calvinists are free to do whatever we want, so why not let sin abound? And now you suggest the exact opposite, that we are slaves and can not do what we want. You probably should pick one or the other as your primary complaint.
My "primary complaint", so to speak, is that no act of yours matters. You succeed or fail based purely on God's whim. That makes you a slave. When you succeed, it manifests as an utter submission to what you perceive as his will. That really makes you a slave.
On the other hand, because nothing you do matters, if you don't submit to his will, you do what you want. Because it doesn't matter.
This is not an inconsistent position in any way. They both result from the abdication of personal responsibility. And that's my beef.
Heddle I have a question.
What do Calvinist theologians explain or at least try to explain for what they believe god's plan may be that allows for seemingly innocent people to be damned before they have a chance to do anything?
Does it not seem strange that a loving god would damn someone before they have a chance to offend. (I realize this has probably been asked to you a thousand times, I just haven't been around to read it).
Rev. BigDumbChimp,
A short answer because I have to teach an Astronomy class at 8:00.
I have been asked that a lot, and the most honest answer is: I don't know.
Now I could go on and on about how God doesn't damn anyone, no double predestination, he actively saves some. That is with the elect he does something active to save them (regeneration) but with the reprobate he simply does nothing; they are damned by their rebellion--which they are helpless to overcome. I understand that at some level that's just semantics. But the bottom line question is: why doesn't God--who presumably could save everyone, choose to actively intervene to save only some?
I don't know. Romans 9 hints a bit at the answer a la vessels of mercy, vessels of wrath--but I don't really know.
So how do Calvinist come to the idea that this is how it is compared to how say a Baptist or a Presbyterian views salvation?
Heddle
Sorry if you've answered this before and I just haven't seen your answer, but you speak throughout as though you are fairly sure that you personally are among the elect.
Is this a correct interpretation of your views on my part and if so how do you know this?
heddle,
assuming you're on NY time you'll be teaching now, but I'll write this anyway - basically, my issue is that I don't think you are in a position to judge what does or doesn't count as Christianity, since you don't have a truly objective standard by which to measure.
Everything you cited - Nicene creed, interpretation of the meaning of certain bible versions - are subjective; someone (or groups of someones) made the decision on the content and the wording in a time far removed from events of Jesus' life.
You have no more genuine reasons to believe you're right than those who don't accept the Nicene creed or who don't consider knowledge of the bible and the history of Christianity to be in any way relevant to their adherence.
I'll take a bible verse; here's one, John 3:15 - That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Seems to me that what that means is that the bible says anyone who believes in Jesus will be saved. Sure, you'll probably produce a half-dozen other verses that contradict that, and you can probably cut and paste a thousand pages of apologetics to 'explain it' in such a way that you'll argue the 'only' way of viewing John 3:15 is your way, but all that does is take us back to my question - why is your interpretation of them, a more correct one than a Christian who only cares about John 3:15 in the context I've used it?
You don't know, because there's no objective standard. You may believe it, but that doesn't mean that your belief trumps that of a Christian (outside your definition of Christian) who has a different interpretation.
heddle:
My point exactly.
Patricia:
That reminds me of something. When I was a college freshman, I was big into an album by English art/pop band 10cc called The Original Soundtrack, which contained their biggest hit: "I'm Not In Love". The whole album is good, though, and side 2 of the LP was kicked off by a pithy little rocker called "The Second Sitting For The Last Supper", which I loved to crank up on the stereo. In all the time I've been lurking here, with all the irreligious songs that have been cited and linked to, I've never seen this one come up. It's a goodie. And it rawks. :-)
The tune.
The lyrics
(In a different song on the same album, they sing, "Life is a minestrone, served up with Parmesan cheese / Death is a cold lasagna, suspended in deep-freeze," which may indicate a belief in some kind of afterlife. Note that this was written before the advent of the microwave oven - which makes it prophetic in a deep, or perhaps I should say deep-dish, kind of way.)
Shorter Heddle: "I believe what I believe because it makes me happy, not because it makes sense."
Wowbagger, OM,
I think I do, using the bible as the yardstick, but that is somewhat beside the point. No matter how you slice and dice it, I am not obligated to accept someone’s claim willy-nilly. Nor are they under any obligation to accept mine. And by the way, if someone says “heddle is not a true Christian” and you feel inclined to defend me, don’t. It doesn’t offend me if someone says that. (I get that, occasionally, from hardcore YECs.)
Before I answer that, I’ll make a bold assertion—that if you are to judge Calvinism vs. Arminianism by the standard of the number of isolated verses in scripture that support one or the other, Calvinism will win hands down. The mercy rule will come into play. On sheer numbers it dominates. There are a couple problematic verses in the New Testament for a Calvinistic view (yours is not one of them, but hold that thought), and scores of isolated that support it. Even its detractors acknowledge such, that a tally sheet of isolated verses greatly favors Calvinism, and argue (correctly) that verses in isolation are a poor way to do exegesis.
As for your verse, there is this explanation. The Greek word translated as “believe” in John 3:15 is pisteuō. It does not mean simple belief, but something deeper—like belief plus trust—which is what we normally call faith. An alternative translation is “whoever has faith will not perish.” If we had a common verb form for faith—he who “faiths”, that could be used here, but we don’t. So the verb gets translated as “believes”.
Calvinists absolutely agree with this verse. He who has faith (pistis—the noun) will have eternal life.
Who has this faith? The same word is used in Eph. 2:8: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith [pistis]—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
The faith comes not as something you muster up, but as a gift. (Here is one of those pro Calvinism verses.)
So Calvinism has no problem with John 3:15-16. The “believing” is faith. Whoever has it is saved. Who has it? Those to whom it was given as a gift from God.
Because, taking scripture as a whole, Calvinism either presents a more self-consistent and systematic interpretation—or it doesn’t. That is how you judge, at least between those theologies that claim to be based on the bible. And an unbeliever could do this—simply take the two broad views—Calvinism and Arminianism, and ask which fits better. So there is a way to judge. I would contend that the only thing that can obfuscate a conclusion of Calvinism is an injection of “well if I were God, I wouldn’t do that” into the mix. But don’t take my word for it—try it. But don’t say there is no way to judge. There is.
Lilly de Lure,
Yes it is. That gets into the doctrine of assurance of salvation. For that one has to examine one’s life and see if the promises of the changes that accrue to believers are evident in your own life. Do you feel repentance? Do you feel like a sinner? Do you see your life changing? Can you tell a before./after difference? Do you seek to glorify God? Do you enjoy God? Do you jettison guilt and readily accept grace? Do you give evidence of good works? Do you work out your salvation? Do you not only believe but trust? Do you not only believe and trust but do you think what God commands of you is not just a rule but is intrinsically good? Those things characterize someone with faith as opposed to someone who might, as James tells us the demons do, simply believe. So the answer is through self examination.
Rev. Chimp,
Well, Presbyterians are Calvinists—just look up their confession (the Westminster Confession.) It is pure Calvinism. (Caveat—the mainline Presbyterian denomination, the PC-USA, is liberal—and who knows if they ever look their own confession—but historically Presbyterians are Calvinists, and the conservative Presbyterians still are.) And Baptists are more or less split, with the substantial Calvinist minority growing especially among the youth. (When I talk to Baptists students on campus—I am now surprised when they are not Calvinists. Ten years ago it would have been the other way around.)
But to answer your question in the most basic form—the difference is in the view of God’s sovereignty and original sin and how that is manifested. In a nutshell we have different time-orderings. Calvinists believe regeneration precedes faith. Non-Calvinists believe faith precedes regeneration.
Watchman,
Your point is not correct. OK, to be fair, it is not necessarily correct. I gave an example of a doctrine that like but I don't think is correct--the rapture of the church. I do not think it is right, even though I like it, which I think is your point. I also like the idea of universal salvation--I love that doctrine--but I don't think it is correct. So just because I like Calvinism doesn't mean that is why I believe it is correct--it could mean that. It could also mean that (and this in fact is what happened--and this is a common testimony of adult converts who become Calvinists) that the study of scripture led us inexorably to Calvinism--in many cases kicking and screaming, for we all the same common objections (that's not fair; we are puppets)--but only later did we come to love the doctrines.
Ok bad choice of denominations, I just picked two out of the air...
But what scripture makes you believe this? Which particular verses/book were used to interpret this in this way and what makes a Calvinist decide that is the correct way to interpret them vs. what another non-calvinist denomination would interpret them? You'll have to forgive me as while I've read the bible it was many moons ago and I don't pretend to have the ability to recall things without employing much google-fu.
Heddle, I freely admit to under-responding to your points. (Time constraints is one reason, lack of brain power is another.) I understand what you're saying, but I'm past the point of being able to see any of it as "true" - been there, done that - so as far as I'm concerned, all apologetics are mere rationalizations for justifying beliefs that are chosen, and not inevitable.
Rev. Chimp,
There are so many isolated verses it is hard to begin. There is actually a framework of Total Depravity or Original Sin. (For Calvinists, they are essentially the same thing.) That sets the stage, for Calvinists see it as making one morally incapable of pleasing God. I don't want to give the full scriptural support for Original Sin, let me summarize it with Rom. 3:10 No one seeks God and Rom 8:7 We are unable (not just unwilling) to obey God. and Rom. 8:8 Nobody pleases God. That's the framework.
Once a person buys that, then he sees we are in a bad way. If nobody seeks God, if nobody can obey, if nobody pleases God, then nobody can bring themselves to faith--for that would require seeking God, obeying God, and presumably pleasing God. So if Original Sin (Total Depravity--or moral inability) is true, then God had better gives us the faith, or we aren't going to get it and nobody will be saved. So once you have the T in TULIP, the others had better follow, or all is lost. So then you ask: are they also supported by scripture.
Yes. On that framework we can find any number of verses to support the other Calvinistic doctrines. Just to pick one: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. (John 6:44)
Here is a universal negative. Man, on his own, is actually incapable of coming to Jesus: No one can come to me. One is permitted: the verse does not teach that God prevents man from coming to Jesus, nor does it teach that God inclines man to stay away—it teaches that man is incapable.
But what does draw mean? Is it “woo,” which non-Calvinists admit is required, or does it mean compel?
That verb is used only two other places, where it is translated as drag in Acts 16:9 and James 2:6. The reference is of being dragged into court-- clearly meaning compelled to go to court—not being wooed into court.
So the verb would seem to carry a strong aspect of compulsion.
I can provide many more, but that probably paints the picture.
And then there is Romans 9, virtually a manifesto on Calvinism. There Paul even anticipates the objection: it’s not fair, how can I resist a sovereign God? and provides answers
Heddle, you may claim that a Calvinist view of the Bible is more self-consistent. That still won't change the fact that it is inconsistent; it just reduces it. You are doing a "pick-and-choose" approach. And you're doing it on a book that has undergone 2000 years of selective editing and translation. It's amazing how it's evolved over the centuries.
Not to mention that there is no proof about any of the claims it makes.
Studying scripture is as meaningful an exercise as learning to speak Quenya.
Man, we are deep into the Emperor's silks and fashions.
RobertDW,
I don't admit it is inconsistent. No even close. And you certainly haven't shown it to be. My not being able to explain everything to the last dot over the last 'i' is not the same as the book being inconsistent.
You are doing a "pick-and-choose" approach.
Bullshit. If that is so, point out which passages that I have jettisoned. Point out which passages I have said: no fair, those don't count. On the contrary, I have cautioned against using isolated verses, even though it would be to my advantage.
Again, bullshit. The modern translations, say the NASB, NIV, and ESV of the NT are very good, scholarly translations of extant Greek manuscripts. So there is no evolution to speak of. Since we don't have the original manuscripts, we don't really know in what what we have, based on the earliest manuscripts that survived, differs. So how can you conclude that it is "amazing" how the bible has evolved over 2000 years. The answer: you can't--you're just making that up.
Fine, but If reading about it bothers you, then don't read my posts, or encourage people to stop asking me about it.
Studying scripture is as meaningful an exercise as learning to speak Quenya.
I'm afraid I'd have to go with far less meaningful. Considering the people I know who speak Klingon, Quenya sounds better. If you've never grasped the meaning of a love letter written using the Tengwar...well, hot elven maids with amazing calligraphic skills and amazing taste in places to spend overnight on the beach--let's just say they're not studying scripture.
So I guess you guys'll get bored with your interview with the monster. Nobody can make a dent in heddle's sociopathic little shield protecting him from our mere humanity. We can never make any points worth considering, he's just doing it to demonstrate what a saved guy he is. There is no hell, but spending another five minutes enduring heddle and I'd begin to consider the possibility that I might be in it.
But back to the original point. If a Joss Whedon or Peter Jackson, or a Ron Moore were to create a TV series, or a Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore were to create a comic book series that employed World Building that was straight out of Calvinism, no modern audience would buy it. It's a crappy worldview, institutionalized psychosis for sociopaths. It's fiction, but not even good fiction. It takes a really sick kind of fanboy to act as if it's true.
Thanks Heddle. Been curious, guess I have some reading to do.
Heddle, all your bible quotes are irrelevant to reality unless and until there's some reason to suppose that biblical claims are true, which they're generally not (viz. the totally fictitious Genesis stories), so this is all just dungeons and dragons; does a kobold have infravision? You can find an answer in the text, but it's irrelevant to reality.
SAWells,
Sure, I understand you feel that way. I am not volunteering scriptural explanations, I am being asked. Earlier in the thread I was accused of running away when doctrine came up--and now the complaint is that I am answering direct doctrinal questions. Go figure.
Nothing wrong with Heddle offering up what he and other Calvinists use to explain their doctrine. You don't have to agree with the scripture or how they interpret it but you have to at least accept on face value that is what they are using. You can think it is totally fucking wrong but that doesn't change that they use it in this way.
Unless you can show that he is lying or is wrong about what they use to build the foundation of their doctrine.
Remember, I asked him for some explanation because I'm frankly ignorant on what calvinists use to justify their interpretation.
I think its a total hoot after:
"I can’t tell you how many sermons I have heard telling parishioners to avoid those aspects of the holidays carried over from pagan festivals."
Heddle can say that:
"In my family, we celebrate Christmas as a pagan holiday, acknowledging that it has little to to with Christianity."
and still have the nerve to pull a dozen or two no two Scotsmen on us!
So True Christians can celebrate pagan holidays now!
Oh, there is no war on Christmas. That's totally made up by the talking heads. We just want to be left alone. But you never answered my question why there isn't a movement to change the birthday party to spring.
One more point, the fact that there are many thousands of interpretations of scripture based on fine points of translation and which verses you emphasize is to me one of the primary evidences that the whole thing is bunk. Just imagine a car repair manual with as many interpretations of proper procedure as the bible has. Or better yet, a plumbers training course.
Thank you kindly
Thankyou RobertDW for explaining that all my parts are totally depraved.
If I continue to read Heddles bullshit I will be in a totally depraved mood all day.
You don't have to agree with the scripture or how they interpret it but you have to at least accept on face value that is what they are using.
They're being quite formal about it, and I've no doubt we're getting a better lesson on the intricacies of Calvinism from heddle than we might get from many other places. What I'm left with, as a human being and an atheist, is my esthetic and emotional response to it; I can only offer a critical analysis of heddle's Calvinism as I would for any other human artifact or endeavor, like a work of art, or a piece of music, or a book, or a bloodied battlefield with ravens plucking freshly dead eyes from idealistic young children on a smoking battlefield.
If I understand Calvinism, somebody who believes that it accurately describes the world will go through life secure in the belief that the vast majority of the people he or she encounters will spend an eternity suffering the fate of the damned, and they're OK with that. I don't have any way to fit such a view into the way I look at people, and I can't imagine anybody living that way. It's why I have to conclude that while heddle is a very clever fellow, and can pass a Turing Test with ease, he doesn't appear to behave like I would hope any human being would. Just by virtue of his Calvinism, he isn't on humanity's side, just as I am not rooting for Calvinism. I think his beliefs, as sophisticated as they are, are toxic, and stupid, and I have no more interest in them than I do in what motivates a mass murderer, except as a cautionary lesson.
No argument there. I was just asking for the info from the Calvinists mouth. Do with it as you may. I tend to feel the same way about it from what little I know, but I wanted some data points to actually read up on.
I wanted some data points to actually read up on.
Me too. The more I learn, the uglier it gets. Is it just me, or am I hopelessly naive to hope for and strive for better creations from humanity that hell, and sin, and depravity?
Ken:
It's not just you.
I'm not sure that view is just limited to Calvinism. Certainly the Rapture Ready folks seem to share a similarly dim view of the fate of the vast majority of humanity. Heck, anyone who thinks Christianity is the only path to salvation pretty much accepts that most of those on the planet will eventually endure eternal agony.
I think that, like the abortion issue, most Christians really don't believe what they profess, or at least don't understand the full consequences. Ask most Christians if abortion is murder and they will say yes, yet almost all will refuse to suggest that the woman should be charged with murder, or that intentionally implanting more embryos than can survive in an IVF procedure is at least manslaughter. Likewise, I don't think that most Christians fully grok what their theological commitments regarding salvation and hell actually mean for those around them. For most it seems that "You're going to hell" is more of a scolding than a realization that the recipient will endure tortures for an eternity.
Tulse,
I don't. Revelation describes multitudes in heaven. I think most people, at least in an integrated sense, will be saved.
Revelation describes multitudes in heaven.
And is mostly opposed to the kind of soteriology we find in Romans:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
--22:14-15
How is that not salvation by works, and damnation by doing evil?
Heddle, I'd argue that Calvinism doesn't believe that Christianity is the only path to salvation. God can save whoever the heck he wants to, right? Even the Buddhists and Jews and Muslims, even the atheists, even most egregious sinner -- what one believes or does has no effect on one's salvation. Many of those who call themselves Christian do not believe that -- they believe that the only way to salvation is to explicitly and consciously believe that Jesus is the saviour. By that criterion, most of those on the planet will burn forever in hell.
Tulse,
Yes and no. Christianity is not the only path to salvation--in the sense that it is entirely possible that people unrecognizable as Christians--even those we excommunicate, are saved. At best it is the normative path.
On the other hand, no one gets to the father except by the son. So if a non-traditional Christian--or a baby for that matter--or anyone else is saved--it will be because he can, by grace, present himself before God on the basis of Christ's righteousness. Even if they do not know Christ. So in that sense they are Christians--they just cannot articulate it.
Calvinism is consistent with this. You are quite right. A great Calvinistic verse, perhaps the most definitive of all, is "God will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy."
But even in the case where a conscious decision is the standard you cannot conclude that most people will burn in hell. Who knows what the planet will be like 200, 500, 1000, 10000 years from now. The vast majority of people who will ever live are not alive at the moment.
CJO,
Because only those who can do his commandments, even imperfectly, or only imperfectly, are those already saved.
Also, the better translations are the newer ones, such as the ESV. They will say something like:
Robes are a symbol of righteousness. Those who wash their robes have been saved. The fact that they are washed presupposes they were filthy. The righteousness by which they are cleansed is that of Christ. The works of salvation are his. The necessary works by us are consequences, not causes.
It is perhaps better to read the non-apocalyptic style books, which are easier to understand. For example: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2:8-9).
Can't get a much clearer that it is not salvation by works-- while at the same time all saved people will do good works.
That sounds like rank sophistry to me, but I'm sure it will comfort all those Jews and Muslims and Shintoist and Hindus to know that some of them might be really Christians, even if they don't know it.
Right -- I thought it was clear from the context that I meant most people currently on the planet. In any case, I find it hard to be casual about the possible eternal torture of several billion people.
Wasn't going to get into it (and of course I perpetuated the equivocation myself, using the term "salvation by works" talking about Rev. 22), but Paul's meaning of "works" is a technical term relating to works of the law, specifically circumcision and the purity codes; it emphatically excludes the modern vernacular "good works," meaning ethical conduct.
Personally, I think it does violence to Paul's message to relate him to modern sensibilities at all, Calvinist or otherwise.
We never did nail down what Heddle meant by this bold assertion:
Randall Wilkes #136:
Heddle's response #139:
Of course, by "us," Heddle didn't mean "religionists." It turns out he also didn't mean self-described Christians. At one point, he suggested he meant self-described Christians who attend church regularly.
But that was followed by a bunch of "no true Christian" crap, so it looks like "us" must pared down further to mean something like self-described Christians who attend church regularly, except Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. Or is it self-described Christians who attend church regularly and whose beliefs "roughly" approximate the Nicene Creed? Or is it something else?
Heddle, what did you mean by "us" in #139?
Heddle, by your own words you have declared both that your version of the Bible is inconsistent, AND that you adopt a pick-and-choose approach.
First, the Bible as a whole _is_ inconsistent. You claim that the interpretation Calvinism is more self-consistent than other interpretations, such as Arianism (a term properly applied to a sect of Christianity that died out 1400 years ago, but you seem to be using it in a more modern sense). The only way to make an inconsistent text more consistent is to ditch the inconsistencies. So you _must_ have dropped sections. Further more, you state it is more self-consistent, not that it is self-consistent. Unfortunately, consistency is like pregnancy - you can't be just a little inconsistent.
Heck, you've admitted one inconsistency which you can't resolve already - why a loving god would refuse to save everyone (which, given his supposed power, is the same as actively damning them, especially because he set up the conditions that led to the damnation AND made it applicable to individuals not born who had no say in it).
In addition, the books may be good translations of the ancient Greek. But ancient Greek, much like English, had words with multiple meaning. Just as it is possible to interpret written English in multiple ways, it is easy to interpret ancient Greek in multiple ways. And guess what? Those interpretations change over time.
Yes, we think the modern translations are good scholarly translations. But so were the older translations, such as the King James version - for their time. This just reinforces my point: that the interpretation of translation itself changes over time.
And even with the modern translations, there is still massive room for different interpretations. Let's pick the quote you used just above:
You say robes are a symbol of righteousness. Well, not for the time Revelations was written. Then robes were a symbol of, well, robes. Clothing. You see, what this literally says is "Blessed are those who do their laundry". The idea that robes are a symbol of righteousness is an _interpretation_ laid on top. Personally, I'm of the opinion that an omnipotent omniscient being can get his dictation done correctly. If he'd meant "blessed are the righteous", that's what he would have said.
Finally, even if I was to cede (which I don't) that modern translations of the bible are 100% correct, it wouldn't change the point that the canonisation of the Bible itself was a political bitch fight in the early church, with texts being rejected and included based largely on which faction was more powerful. Every one of the books in the modern Bible, especially those in the New Testament, existed in multiple forms, and there were numerous additional gospels rejected. Curiously, a number of those apparently didn't mention Jesus doing miracles or exhibiting supernatural powers; one of the most common reasons of rejection given was that the text denied the Resurrection. (Of course, some books also went to extremes, such as Jesus blasting his enemies with his eyes, flying with the birds, or walking on water and creating food with the wave of his hand... wait, no those last two got in). So at the very best, you are interpreting a book put together by people with a political agenda, some 300-400 years after the fact, who deliberately omitted the more credible and realistic versions of the texts. Just look at Revelations itself - this is a book that got accepted in the Canons as a result of a split vote; the Eastern Churches (which went on to become the various Orthodox churches) rejected it. Even today, the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't acknowledge the canonisity of Revelations, and it's not read in church or studied by the laity.
Anyway, I'm going to stop chasing up on this thread; as fun as it's been, there's other fun to have.
Or maybe midgets?