B
Something like this seems to happen to me once every year, usually in the Spring or Summer…
I have been in dialogue with a scientifically-minded young lady with leanings towards Eastern religions. Here is my most recent email from her, which ended in a “challenge,” and I’d love to know how some of you would respond to this:
“Your religion isn't the only one out there, it isn't the most interesting of the ones that are, and you seem oddly incapable of wrapping your head around the fact that even if I did know all the specifics of the Bible, I still wouldn't consider it to be my moral compass. Even if Jesus was really the son of God, I wouldn't see him as anything more than some freakish half-human hybrid who happened to be a nice guy.
Even if Jesus really did rise from the dead -- which is doubtful, given that very few credible scientists of this day, try though they might for science's sake, have found any evidence of the existence of the supernatural -- it wouldn't be a grounds for me to feel sympathetic towards Christianity. My fundamental philosophy hinges on the idea that no aspect of reality is innately divine, so even if an all-powerful creator God did exist, and could have a human son (like seriously, what is God's DNA like? Because Jesus couldn't have gotten his Y chromosome from his mother, and besides, all humans have two copies of their genome, with each of the two alleles from each of the two parents, so God must have some kind of human-compatible DNA, in which case, OH MY SUBJECT OF THIS SENTENCE, GOD HAS DNA), it wouldn't mean that I'd worship said God, or believe that I ought to do anything other than politely acknowledge his existence.
Trying to force your faith in abstract ideas into a mold that can fit reality is never going to work, which is why I honestly don't think that reading the details of your evidence is going to change anything for me. The abstract ideas are the important ones, not the specific myths. I'll pretend for a moment that Jesus really did rise from the dead. What does that matter, in the end? What use is there in believing that to be true? It doesn't help me find order in the world, or find peace of heart, or understand life's mysteries. It's a simple story, a narrative no more inundated with significance than the fact that the earth goes round the sun, or that gravity pulls objects of mass together. It happened; it happens. This is reality, where things happen. It doesn't make me particularly enlightened to believe these tales verbatim et literatim. If they were true, then I can do no more than simply know that. One doesn't BELIEVE in simple facts. There's no point in believing something that you know is true.
Real belief lies in the abstraction. If Jesus really did rise from the dead and you could offer proof of that, then you would have, in effect, DISPROVEN the existence of the divine and supernatural, because it means that divinity IS natural, that resurrection IS possible, and so God is not God at all, but a thing governed by reality. But the reason why we cling to old tales is because they come from a far older, more literal time, where people didn't have answers for any of the inner workings of the universe and had to make do with stories.
The abstract ideas of morality and goodness and so on exist outside of the confines of your mythology, or anyone else's. And they are worth believing in. But the rest of it is just packaging. God and Jesus are the superfluous styrofoam and bubble wrap for such fragile, delicate ideas as humans can find. They're fun to play with and pop but if you keep your morals in the wrapping all the time, of course they won't break, but you'll never be able to use them.
But though it must in the end be discarded, the packaging is still important, because without it you'll never be able to sent these beautifully gift-wrapped abstract ideals by parcel post to anyone else.
Here's a challenge for you: WITHOUT MENTIONING anything specific, up to and including God, Jesus, Heaven, Hell, devils, angels, Trinities, saints, sinners, Apostles, Commandments, Adam, Eve, or ANYTHING like that, tell me what at its core Christianity means to you, and why it, above all else, shows you how to be a good person. Give it to me in its abstract form. Because if it can't function without the trappings of mythology, I couldn't even begin to consider it worth my time.”
I have been in dialogue with a scientifically-minded young lady with leanings towards Eastern religions. Here is my most recent email from her, which ended in a “challenge,” and I’d love to know how some of you would respond to this:
“Your religion isn't the only one out there, it isn't the most interesting of the ones that are, and you seem oddly incapable of wrapping your head around the fact that even if I did know all the specifics of the Bible, I still wouldn't consider it to be my moral compass. Even if Jesus was really the son of God, I wouldn't see him as anything more than some freakish half-human hybrid who happened to be a nice guy.
Even if Jesus really did rise from the dead -- which is doubtful, given that very few credible scientists of this day, try though they might for science's sake, have found any evidence of the existence of the supernatural -- it wouldn't be a grounds for me to feel sympathetic towards Christianity. My fundamental philosophy hinges on the idea that no aspect of reality is innately divine, so even if an all-powerful creator God did exist, and could have a human son (like seriously, what is God's DNA like? Because Jesus couldn't have gotten his Y chromosome from his mother, and besides, all humans have two copies of their genome, with each of the two alleles from each of the two parents, so God must have some kind of human-compatible DNA, in which case, OH MY SUBJECT OF THIS SENTENCE, GOD HAS DNA), it wouldn't mean that I'd worship said God, or believe that I ought to do anything other than politely acknowledge his existence.
Trying to force your faith in abstract ideas into a mold that can fit reality is never going to work, which is why I honestly don't think that reading the details of your evidence is going to change anything for me. The abstract ideas are the important ones, not the specific myths. I'll pretend for a moment that Jesus really did rise from the dead. What does that matter, in the end? What use is there in believing that to be true? It doesn't help me find order in the world, or find peace of heart, or understand life's mysteries. It's a simple story, a narrative no more inundated with significance than the fact that the earth goes round the sun, or that gravity pulls objects of mass together. It happened; it happens. This is reality, where things happen. It doesn't make me particularly enlightened to believe these tales verbatim et literatim. If they were true, then I can do no more than simply know that. One doesn't BELIEVE in simple facts. There's no point in believing something that you know is true.
Real belief lies in the abstraction. If Jesus really did rise from the dead and you could offer proof of that, then you would have, in effect, DISPROVEN the existence of the divine and supernatural, because it means that divinity IS natural, that resurrection IS possible, and so God is not God at all, but a thing governed by reality. But the reason why we cling to old tales is because they come from a far older, more literal time, where people didn't have answers for any of the inner workings of the universe and had to make do with stories.
The abstract ideas of morality and goodness and so on exist outside of the confines of your mythology, or anyone else's. And they are worth believing in. But the rest of it is just packaging. God and Jesus are the superfluous styrofoam and bubble wrap for such fragile, delicate ideas as humans can find. They're fun to play with and pop but if you keep your morals in the wrapping all the time, of course they won't break, but you'll never be able to use them.
But though it must in the end be discarded, the packaging is still important, because without it you'll never be able to sent these beautifully gift-wrapped abstract ideals by parcel post to anyone else.
Here's a challenge for you: WITHOUT MENTIONING anything specific, up to and including God, Jesus, Heaven, Hell, devils, angels, Trinities, saints, sinners, Apostles, Commandments, Adam, Eve, or ANYTHING like that, tell me what at its core Christianity means to you, and why it, above all else, shows you how to be a good person. Give it to me in its abstract form. Because if it can't function without the trappings of mythology, I couldn't even begin to consider it worth my time.”
