Tag Archives: Christ

Hermeneutics = Sameoldtrics?

Posted on by
Reply

Paul&JCHermeneutic consistency is the means by which Christian apologists try to harmonise disparate parts of the Bible. Saddled with the premise that the Bible is the Word of God they need to demonstrate a consistency it doesn’t have because God, as its ultimate creator, could not possibly be the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14.33). Consequently, they set about ironing out the Bible’s many discrepancies and contradictions to arrive at what they claim is a consistent and uniform Salvation Plan.

Unfortunately, this being an essentially dishonest enterprise, they have to pretend that New Testament authors with conflicting ideas about what it means to be a follower of Jesus are really saying the same thing. As I demonstrate in Jesus v Paul Round 2, there are vast differences between Paul’s good news and that ascribed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels. In the latter, Jesus is made to say that ‘righteousness’ can be cultivated in a measure-for-measure arrangement so that the extent to which a person forgives, gives to others and demonstrates compassion and mercy is mirrored exactly in how much God forgives, gives and shows mercy and compassion to that person in return. Paul on the other hand sees ‘salvation’ as being entirely undeserved. It is, rather, the result of God’s ‘grace’, which is given even though unmerited. According to Paul, showing compassion and mercy and offering forgiveness has no bearing on whether one is saved or not. These – Jesus’ path of righteousness and Paul’s unearned salvation – are two entirely different, and mutually exclusive, ‘ways to God’. Christians choose to remain blind to this fact.

They see no difference between the two ways to redemption because they are taught that Christianity is one grand scheme, woven, as it were, from a single piece of cloth. From this perspective, Jesus and Paul are simply drawing attention to different aspects of what is taken to be a consistent pattern. But this isn’t so; the New Testament is more like an untidy patchwork, a series of explanations by at least a dozen hands of what Jesus was about. Its most prominent voice is Paul’s (and those who pretend to be him); Christians prioritise Paul’s teaching over and above that of the synoptic gospels, which is markedly different, and interpret their ‘good news’ in the light of Paul’s mysticism. What doesn’t fit, they discard.

This has been a problem ever since the start of Christianity; the differences and disputes between Paul and the original disciples is well documented in the New Testament itself. Paul did not regard those who had walked and talked with Jesus as having a grasp of the true gospel (his) and was not reticent about saying what he thought of them. In Galatians 5.12, for example, Paul is so pissed off with the apostles he wishes they would accidentally castrate themselves.

Enter Luke, the original hermeneutic harmoniser. His Acts of the Apostles is designed to reconcile the radically different doctrines. By and large he succeeds, with most believers down the ages, perhaps because they haven’t wanted to, unable see the joins. But Acts doesn’t get Paul’s itinerary right, let alone his theology. The speeches Paul makes in Acts are not about the salvation through grace that concern him in his letters. They make concessions to other teaching – that of repentance and forgiveness (for example in Acts 13.38 and 17.30) while the real Paul makes no such compromise. There are no exhortations to repentance nor the promise of forgiveness in Paul’s own writing; there he mentions repentance only once, in a strikingly different context (Romans 2.4), and forgiveness not at all.

Moreover, Paul is adamant that he did not receive his doctrine from Peter or anyone else (Galatians 1.11-12). Instead he insists he got it direct from the Lord – i.e. through the hallucination he alludes to in Galatians 1.11-12 and 1 Corinthians 9.1 & 15.45 – which explains why it is so radically different from the original believers’. In Acts, however, Luke isn’t very happy with this – he’s trying to harmonise, after all – and has Paul meet Peter and James very soon after his conversion (Acts 9.26-30). Following some initial sheepishness, Luke implies, they all get on famously.

According to Paul, however, he and Peter didn’t meet for the first time until three years after Paul’s conversion (Galatians 1.18) and it was fourteen years later before he talked with a larger group of disciples (Galatians 2.1), when ‘the pillars of the church’ summoned him because of his wayward teaching. Paul records how he ‘rebuked’ Peter shortly after this (Galatians 2.11-13) because he objected to Peter’s interpretation of what was involved in following Jesus. In short, Paul and the apostles could not agree on what constituted belief in Jesus and what part Jewish law played.

Two questions result that Christians need to ask themselves, though invariably they don’t:

1. Where there are discrepancies between Paul’s theology and account of events, and Luke’s – written 15-20 years after Paul’s death – which is more likely to be correct?

2. Who is more likely to have the greater understanding of Jesus’ teaching: Paul who never met him but made it all up in his head, or Peter and the other disciples who spent years with him, listening to what he said?

In answer to the second, Christians down the ages have opted for Paul, the one who made it all up. His Salvation Plan is, after all, easier to buy into than Jesus’ mad idea of giving everything away and loving your enemies. Having chosen their man, it follows that the rest of the New Testament must be forced to comply with Paul’s ideas.

This is hermeneutics in the hands of Christians; an intellectually dishonest sleight of hand designed to bring everything into line with their interpretation of Paul’s idiosyncratic take on a man he never met. As for those who are unimpressed by their contortions, well, it must be that they have a faulty hermeneutic. Praise the Lord!

A Long Long Time Ago

Posted on by
Reply

ShinyJesusHe was a man of great charisma, a provocative individual who challenged the establishment and the norms of his day. Some said, as he implied himself, that he had come to visit the Earth from a higher plane and that perhaps, again as he occasionally hinted (though maybe he was only being contentious) that he was some sort of Messiah. He certainly inspired and gave hope to others who, like himself, found themselves on the fringes of society, who felt unaccepted and down-trodden. Some of what he said and did may have enabled such people to accept who they were or, better still, who they wanted to be.

He refused to accept that he was ‘good’, and certainly he acted as he did because it suited him to do so, not because he felt any need to impress others. Nevertheless, many found him to be humble and kind. His detractors said he was a charlatan and claimed he was demon-possessed; he was all things to all people.

His death came as a shock, what with its suddenness and the manner in which it happened, but nonetheless he seemed to have been prepared for it. In his final messages he suggested he was returning to the higher place from where, perhaps, he’d originally come.

Those who had followed him mourned him and talked of him as an important figure in their lives. They couldn’t, they said, believe he was gone. Some felt that even though he was no longer a physical presence in the world, what he had meant to them would always live on in their hearts, especially when a few of them would gather together to reminisce about him. Others talked of how they hoped and prayed God would raise him from the dead and allow him to live again.

It wouldn’t be long before someone claimed to have seen him back among the living.

So much for David Bowie (there really is a petition asking God to bring him back to life, in spite of his already having been cremated and there being no God.) Within hours of his death being announced, Bowie was elevated to a sort of godhood, his work and sense of alienation imbued with a kind of profound mysticism. The reaction we’ve seen, particularly in the UK, to Bowie’s demise is a common human reaction to the death of a revered one. It happened when John Lennon was killed (a saint he was not) and with Elvis Presley, who, in the years following his death was frequently seen alive in the supermarket or laundromat, and with Diana, Princess of Wales. Elevating larger than life characters to hallowed status when they die is a human trait that helps us mourn them and deal with bereavement.

Is this not what happened when Jesus died? The profound grief, bewilderment, fear and shared memories of those who idolised him, together with their desperate search for meaning in his pointless end, led to his elevation to quasi-godhood and, eventually, to visions of him, if not in the supermarket and laundromat, then back amongst them somehow. If such a thing can happen still, in the technological world of the twenty-first century, how much more could it happen in the superstitious backwaters of first century Palestine.

 

Peace Off

Posted on by
Reply

angels

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2.14 as rendered by the King James Bible.

Whatever happened to that peace? There hasn’t been peace on earth ever since the angels were made to herald Christ’s birth with these words. Some of that absence of peace – the conflicts and wars – has been the result of religion, including that of Jesus himself. Then again, he did contradict the angels when he said he hadn’t come to bring peace but a sword and for once, he was right (Matthew 10.34). So what can the angels have meant? More to the point, what can those who created these words to put in the mouths of non-existent beings have been thinking? Is their declaration a promise? A prophecy? Something to look good on Christmas cards?

Other translations of Luke 2.14 avoid the whole peace on earth shtick by watering down the statement: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests’ reads the NIV. Now only those whom God ‘favours’ are granted peace, which presumably means only Christians, and it’s now a vague sense of well-being (complacency? smugness?) that isn’t of much use to the world at large. Certainly other New Testament writers, the creators of John’s gospel and the letter to the Ephesians for example, interpret ‘peace’ in this very limited way.

And yet, in Isaiah, in verses applied to Jesus (especially at this time of year; they were read out in the carol service I attended last night) we find him descibed like this:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9.6)

Apart from the fact this is a specifically Jewish prophecy that has nothing to do with Jesus – which is why most of the titles don’t really apply to him (nobody has ever called him ‘Wonderful Counselor’ or ‘Everlasting Father’) – there again is the idea that he’s somehow connected with capital-letter Peace. He’s a Prince of it, no less.

But wait – there’s more:

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. (9.7)

Of course; it’s all end time stuff! We should’ve guessed. Long term peace on the Earth, predicted by the angels and, ostensibly, by Isaiah is going to be in the future, after Jesus returns to establish God’s Kingdom on earth.

Have you noticed how it’s always in the future? Everything Christianity offers is going to happen later: heaven, eternal life, the second coming, the rapture, resurrection, God’s Kingdom, the lion lying down with the lamb, the end of war, everlasting peace. Not in Jesus’ own time as he thought; not in Paul’s, not in the gospel writers’, not any time since, but always just around the corner, any time now, soon. Never in the here and now. Peace on Earth, like all those other promises, is always just out of reach, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – the closer you think you might be to it, the further it moves away.

A friend added one of those clever posters to Facebook recently. It said, amongst other things, that it wasn’t okay to ‘shame’ religion. I couldn’t disagree more. Scams must be debunked and the sham of religion’s empty promises held up to the light of reality. None of the things that the Bible says will happen is going to; not now, nor in an ever-elusive future.

A happy and peaceful Christmas to both my readers.

Sin Nevermore

Posted on by
2

Second

Remember the old hit Spirit in the Sky? It had the line, ‘never been a sinner, I never sin, ‘cos I got a friend in Jesus’. It doesn’t seem likely, does it? I don’t mean that Norman Greenbaum, who wrote the song, never sinned (he was Jewish, not a Christian) but that friends of Jesus are entirely sin-free. The idea that Christians never sin would be preposterous.

But actually, it’s true; Christians never sin. How do we know? Because the Bible tells us so. 1 John 3.6 says,

No one who abides in Christ sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.

And just in case we miss the point, the writer of the letter (almost certainly not the same John who wrote the gospel, nor the John who came up with the trippy Revelation) repeats it in verse 9:

Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God.

Christians love to say that awkward bits of scripture like these have been taken out of context, so please feel free to read them in context – you’ll find they say exactly the same thing. What John is claiming – without a glimmer of irony – is that anyone who really knows God/Christ ‘cannot sin’.

So next time you see Christians shooting people at family planning clinics, committing adultery, lying or even just judging others, remember they’re not really sinning. Yes, they may be behaving immorally, uncharitably or despicably but they are most definitely not sinning. That would be impossible because they’re incapable of it.

However, Christians are all too aware that they sin (that’s their choice of word, by the way; I’d prefer to say they sometimes – often – behave as badly as those of us who are not ‘saved’.) So where does this leave us or, more importantly, them? How do they square their capacity for sin with what the Bible says here? Does their behaviour demonstrate that God’s Word has it wrong? Or are they not really Christians, not really people who ‘abide in Christ’, not really born of God?

What a dilemma. Either the Word of God™ is wrong here, like it is in so many other places, or Christians are not as saved as they like to think they are. Perhaps it’s both.

Definitely it’s both.

 

You’re not as saved as you think

Posted on by
3

God2So now you’re a Christian. You’ve listened to the street preacher or that Christian at work and you’ve accepted Christ. You’re saved and going to Heaven when you die.

Or are you? You’re not going to Heaven that’s for sure, because Heaven isn’t on offer – as we saw here, the Bible doesn’t promise an eternal life in Heaven. But are you even saved? Has ‘the most important decision of your life’ really made you one of God’s own?

If you think you’ve chosen God, you’re wrong. You don’t choose God, he chooses you (or not, as the case may be). And if he hasn’t chosen you, then any decision of yours is of no consequence. You can shout all you like about how you’re now saved, born again and a follower of Jesus but if God says you’re not, then you’re not.

How do we know this? Because the Word of God™ says so:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will… (Ephesians 1. 3-5)

In other words, you’re only saved if God decided you were going to be right back at the beginning of time. And if he didn’t, well, you can talk the talk and even walk the walk, but it will all be for nothing.

Jesus too is quite clear that it isn’t up to you whether or not you’re one of God’s chosen few. Here he is the middle of one of his tiresome parables about the Kingdom of God, where the King has told his slaves:

“Go… into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” His slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22.9-14)

So, how do you know if you’re one of the special few hand-picked by God himself and not just one of those poor suckers who’s been invited along only to be thrown out? You don’t. Your capricious God won’t tell you till after you’ve died and you meet him face to face. There’s every possibility you’ll find out then that you’re not saved, because only a few of those called actually are. And then where will you be? Hell, that’s where. You’ll be no better off, according to the Bible anyway, than those who’ve not been duped by all of this nonsense.

So, you can believe all you like that God loves you. You can make all the right noises, study your Bible, pray, imagine you hear God’s voice in your head, go to church, sing the right songs and defend God’s standards, but there’s still a very good chance you’re not saved.

Jesus again:

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.” (Matthew 7.21-23)

But don’t worry, you were never ‘saved’ in the first place, nor lost, nor in need of Jesus; none of this mad fairy tale is real. Your only mistake – and it was a big one – was to think it was.

Idiotic Stuff Jesus Said 13: We Don’t Need No Educashun

Posted on by
Reply

MegaBut you are not to be called rabbi (teacher), for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Matthew 23:8-12

Evidently these words were put into Jesus’ mouth by the community that produced Matthew’s gospel and reflect the egalitarianism and communism that characterised it. The phrase that gives away their origins is ‘you have one instructor; the Christ’. ‘The Christ’, as we know, was a creation of the early church and it is highly unlikely Jesus would have referred to himself in such a way. In the synoptic gospels he is reticent even about claiming the Jewish title of Messiah for himself. In any case, the reference is patently to a third party, and is by an author or interpolator who subscribes to the later, supernatural Christ.

In the unlikely event, then, that these words emanated from Jesus himself, all they achieve is to demonstrate his lack of understanding of human psychology. Even as ‘Matthew’ set about recording them, the newly founded church was already ignoring them, which is perhaps why he felt the need to have Jesus say them. Here’s Ephesians 4.11, written by someone pretending to be Paul round about 80-100CE, contradicting them:

Christ gave (us) the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers…

The imposter who wrote 1 Timothy (5:17) up to a hundred years after Jesus’ death goes further, endorsing the exaltation of those who teach and rule others:

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in preaching and teaching.

Why? Because human beings like hierarchies. Almost all human societies are hierarchical in nature and groups invariably arrange themselves hierarchically. There will always be people who see themselves as leaders and teachers and still others who look to those who’ve set themselves up as authorities to tell them what to do.

Despite what Jesus or ‘Matthew’ might have preferred – everyone being equal while those who ‘exalt’ themselves are humbled – it just doesn’t happen in human culture. It certainly wasn’t happening in the movement that emerged following Jesus’ death, in the church that existed by the time Matthew was making Jesus say that the only authority Christians should recognise was God’s and his own. The institution that was appearing in place of the end of the age – an institution that Jesus neither anticipated nor instigated – could not function effectively as the simple band of ‘brothers’ he is made to suggest. It was in need of structure, and a hierarchy was it.

And so it was that, before long, the first popes emerged – ‘pope’ deriving from the Latin for ‘papa’. Each of these exalted figures would come to be referred to as ‘Holy Father’, a title still in use today. With complete disregard for Jesus’ instructions, other priests (meaning ‘elders’) in the Catholic church also assumed the title ‘father’. Evangelical churches, lest they think the Catholic church is the only guilty party, have their ‘pastors’, meaning ‘shepherds’, who, by definition, lead others. A common or garden ‘clergyman’ is a ‘learned man’, while a bishop is one who ‘looks down from above’. An archbishop is chief look-downer and exalted indeed. Elsewhere, showmen preachers in mega-churches ‘teach’ with a mixture of anecdote, wild conjecture and stuff they make up as they go along; tune into TV’s God channels for a taste of this particular brand of humility. The church in all its manifestations has, from the beginning, been hierarchical from top to bottom.

Jesus, however, didn’t want there to be a top or bottom; if Matthew 23.8-12 is to be believed, he commanded there shouldn’t be. He envisaged his followers living in harmony with everyone equal under his and God’s authority. No-one was to set themselves up as teacher or leader; no-one was to exalt themselves above others. If any did, they would need to be humbled. But this isn’t how human beings organise themselves, and never how the church has conducted itself. Shouldn’t he have known that?

Searching for Answers

Posted on by
Reply

TrustA tiny pamphlet is thrust into my hand by the street preacher’s confederate. Searching For Answers? it says, the question mark meaning, I suppose, ‘are you searching for answers?’, to which the answer is probably ‘no’. I’m not even sure I know the questions, which rules out, I can’t help feeling, finding the answers. It is badly printed and has a picture of a sunset on the front; inside shoddy grammar and misspelling tell me, not entirely to my surprise, that I need God.

The preacher is in full flow. Evolution, he’s saying, is a hoax, though he doesn’t tell those passing by why it is. Unless we repent of our sins and accept Christ, he insists, we’re all going to Hell and waves his Bible to prove it. A woman sitting on one of the nearby benches shouts something back at him – I can’t quite hear what, though it’s something about love – and he, with the advantage of his microphone and loudspeaker, bellows at her that there’s no arguing with God’s Word. Plus, he’s only telling her what a terrible person she is because he loves her.

I’ve made the mistake of slowing down to hear what’s going on and as I attempt now to walk on, to return to the reality of Saturday afternoon shopping, the man with the tracts catches me again.

‘So,’ he says, ‘what do you think? Will you let Jesus into your life?’

‘Not today,’ I say, ‘we’ve both got better things to do.’

‘There’s nothing better than turning to Jesus. And he likes nothing better than saving another lost sheep. Are you a lost sheep?’ he adds.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not a sheep and I’m not lost. I’m on my way home right now, in fact.’

‘Ah, but do you have a home in heaven?’ he asks. He’s good; whatever I say, however light I try to make it, he turns it round into another impertinent question.

‘I thought you had all the answers,’ I say to him, glancing down at the tatty bit of folded paper in my hands. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘I’m telling you, my friend, you don’t,’ he says earnestly. ‘You are lost in your sin and because God cannot tolerate sin you have no place in Heaven. Not unless you repent and accept Christ.’

‘Jesus!’ I mutter under my breath. ‘Look, I don’t believe in your Christ or any of this stuff.” I push his tract back at him, ‘and I’m not your friend either.’ He looks crestfallen, but only for the briefest of seconds. His ally, still performing for the crowd, is shouting that Jesus is coming back soon to judge the world.

‘And you’d better be ready,’ my new best pal tells me, reinvigorated. I shake my head and step round him, apologising that I have to go; why? I wonder, when it was he who accosted me? So, despite not searching for any answers, I now have them. They just don’t seem to match any questions I might have, like why there’s so much suffering in the world and why human beings do such terrible things to each other (often in the name of religion) and what am I going to have for my tea? Now there’s a question worth answering.

I Don’t Believe It

Posted on by
Reply

Fabric‘When you think about it’, the taller of the two men said, ‘there is no evidence whatsoever that God, nor indeed any supernatural being.

‘I suppose you’re right’, said the other.

‘With that realisation, my faith began to dissipate. I mean if there’s no God, no angels, demons or Christs, no Holy Spirit, devils, fairies or Santa Claus, then it must mean they’re just figments of the imagination. Take that human element out of the equation and what you’re left with is… well, the natural world and nothing else’.

‘I suppose not’, said the other.

‘From there one realises there is no point in praying – I mean, talking to a being who only exists in your own head. Or reading the Bible; one begins to see it as a very human book, which of course it is’.

‘I suppose so’, said the other.

‘It means too that Jesus can only have been a mortal man – of course he was – and that a good deal of his teaching – if we can believe it really was his and not simply invented by his followers – makes no sense whatever. It was only the eyes of misplaced faith that made it appear so’.

‘I suppose it doesn’t’, said the other.

‘I mean, “pray for whatever you need and God will supply it”. Who has ever believed that sort of thing anyway? No-one. Not really. We all know that doesn’t work; Jesus himself, one suspects. And as for the resurrection, well, if you read those accounts at face value all they saw – Mary Magdalene, Paul and the rest of them – all they saw were visions, not a real person. All in their minds, you see’.

‘I suppose I do’, said the other.

‘No, Christianity is nothing but false promises, failed prophecies – Jesus saying he’d return within his disciples’ lifetime – and impossible morality: “be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect”! Well, I’ve never met anyone who is, Christian or otherwise. Good people are good whether or not they’re Christians and the mean-spirited are mean-spirited whichever side of conversion they’re on.

‘I suppose so’, said the other, before seeing his chance to add, ‘well, that’s £1.80 for your Church Times, Archbishop. Will there be anything else?’

Rejecting Jesus – The Book

Posted on by
Reply

RJCoverIt’s a miracle! Rejecting Jesus is now in book form! And on Kindle too.

ScrollWell, not quite – sorry JC.

But you can now read Rejecting Jesus posts in the format the Son of God would surely have preferred if books had existed then the way they do now. The pictures are all present and correct too, in glorious B&W, for all first-century messiahs to enjoy.

Available here and here and also all over the world. Go, buy it, make disciples of all nations.

 

Of Pans & Kettles

Posted on by
Reply

WilliamMeet Father Dwight Longenecker. He operates a blog called Standing On My Head, which, if he really does, might account for the topsy-turvy view of the world you’ll find there. Dwight makes grandiose and daft claims for the Roman Catholic church while taking side-swipes at others’ beliefs: Atheism, he says, is dull because – quite unreasonably – it insists on ‘evidence’, which Dwight is sure is quite over-rated. Other belief systems are boring because they don’t involve nearly as much dressing up and parading with statues as Catholicism. Islam is a demonically inspired religion that can only be defeated by Aslan the Catholic church’s special magic… you get the picture.

Here are some other fantastic claims he’s made recently:

On other religions:
There is only one God who is the source and ground of existence. However, there are also demonic beings sometimes called “demi-gods” that many people worship as “gods”.                                                                                                                           

The ‘everybody is wrong but me’ argument, which is ironic when so much of what Catholics believe isn’t even remotely biblical: the Pope, purgatory, Marian worship, saintly intercession, transubstantiation. All this extraneous stuff is regarded by other Christians as being itself ‘demonic’. Dwight doesn’t seem to realise he’s in a glass house (church?) and in no position to cast this particular stone. 

On the after-life:
I would have thought the universal human belief in an afterlife – as well as near death experiences – provide ample evidence, but of course (atheists) dispute that.

The problem here is that there is no ‘universal belief in an afterlife’. As I note in ‘All Is Vanity’ below, the belief in the resurrection of the dead is a very late development even in the Old Testament; ancient Judaism, despite its belief in Yahweh, did not consider the possibility for most of its existence. That said, if there were such a universal belief, it would not mean eternal life actually existed. There has always been widespread belief in fairies and sprites but that doesn’t make such beings real. There is no correspondence between the extent and persistence of a belief and the existence in reality of its object.
As for near death experiences, the clue is in the name; near death. Near death is not death, it’s life. How else would we know of the experiences if not through people who have been resuscitated, brought fully back to consciousness? These experiences are now known to be brain-induced hallucinations while a person remains, if only just, alive.

On the Catholic version of the after-life:
Your understanding of the Catholic approach to the afterlife is immature. We don’t spend our life trying hard to get into heaven. We spend our life in an abundant, joyful and disciplined way being a follower of Jesus Christ and aiming to become “perfect as he is perfect”.

That my understanding of an immature belief is immature seems fitting. I don’t suggest Catholics spend their lives trying to get into heaven; this is a straw man of Longenecker’s creation. I’ve also yet to meet a Catholic who is any more ‘perfect’ than the rest of us. I’ve not encountered many joyful ones either, come to that.

On living this life:
The intrinsic problem with your saying you would rather make the “most of this life” is the question of what that actually means. Your idea of “making the most of life” and your neighbor’s idea of “making the most of life” could vary enormously. Who is to say what “making the most of life” consists of?

Dwight and the church he represents would rather we all conform to Catholic ideas of what makes life worth living. As for who is to say what making the most of life consists of, I’d have thought it was those living it. Dwight has chosen strange religious practices as his way of living his life, but so insecure is he in his choice he feels the need to denigrate others’ choices as a means of bolstering his own.

On the world’s problems:
It seems to me that most of the problems in the world are caused by people “making the most of life”- which usually means unfettered and total selfishness – which of course leads to destruction.      

I’d be the last person to mention the Catholic church’s paedophilia scandals, its covering up of those scandals, its suppression of women and LGBT people, its accumulation of vast wealth in the service of one who constantly preached against it. Nor would I want to say anything about the church’s historic failings (so no mention of the Inquisition, the imprisonment and execution of those who disagreed with it, its support of Hitler and so on.

Dwight presents no evidence for his subjective claim (‘it seems to me’) that the only alternative to Catholicism is hedonism and selfishness. The false dichotomy is wholly disingenuous. It is not hedonism or atheism that says we merit God’s special attention; not atheism that panders to our selfish desire to live forever; not atheism that says God will get us out of the hole into which we’ve dug ourselves; not atheism that promulgates such a supremely arrogant and self-centred view of life. No, it’s the Christian perspective that does that, the Catholic one. Indeed, it could and has been argued, by Hitchens, Harris et al, that most of the problems in the world are caused not by atheism or even ‘unfettered selfishness’, but by religion.

Atheism and the humanism to which it gives rise accept that we got ourselves into this mess and it’s ourselves who will have to get us out of it. Maybe that’s boring and maybe it will prove impossible, but it’s better, more realistic, than appealing to fairy tales, dressing up and talking to statues.

 

Picture updated 23/08/15