[This is a review of a Christian book, intended for Christians. I'm sure non-Christians will be posting reviews of non-Christian books and that's great. But this book review is NOT an invitation to push your own religion, even if you stridently protest "it's NOT a religion!" OK, fine. But this is a book review and discussion site, not a WWF match. Yet, I'm sure we'll see the atheist sub-camp within the Paulite-Libertarian camp post like crazy, and 'score' their fellow atheists with positive arrows, and me with negative ones, ad nauseam. Please folks, grow up; the book reviews can be useful...but not as more fodder for sandbox fights by disenchanted God-haters.]
Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices is another one of those "once in a lifetime" books, at least for Christians.
Frank Viola published the original edition a few years ago, then teamed up this year with Christian pollster George Barna to do this new release under a Tyndale House imprint.
The thesis will blow you away...and their true claims are all well-documented in the text so you can go look these things up for yourself. The authors' thesis? That almost everything we know as "church" today is not taught, supported, or commanded in the New Testament.. For instance, here are things you don't see modeled in the NT:
- the church building
- steeples
- pulpits
- regular sermons by one person
- prepared sermons of any kind
- full-time pay for 'church staff'
- clerical garb and robes
- dressing up for "church service"
- an 'order of worship'
- trained singers, musicians, and 'music ministry'
- Sunday school
...and more!
If you're a Christian, and wondered why you're so tired and empty from "going to church" stuff, just realise that religious practice in the body of Christ has been unbiblical for at least 1700 years, and even worse since the "Reformation".
Even for non-Christians, it is very important that America's Christians are living a religious game, while thinking they are doing "God's will". The political and military implications of all this artificial "Christianity, Inc." cannot be overstated, and if He were here now, Christ would disavow any such false followers.
If you are a follower of Christ and you decide to read this book, do me a favor: DON'T start discussing it in your corporate, institutional church! You will make enemies of the career religious people there (you're threatening their whole career path and "calling") and will also infuriate most of those who "go to church" pretty much out of habit, rather than to BE His Church, as He told us to do.
This is a neutron-bomb of a book. It has liberated me more than any book I've read in the 34 years I've stumbled after Christ (except for the Bible itself). Now I am a follower of the Christ, unburdened by man's accretions and fallen institutions, looking forward to growing in a simple, organic way with the rest of His body, wherever we live on earth. Oh, what sweet liberty!
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"Secret Origins of the Bible"
"Who Wrote the Gospels"
These two books are well researched and easy to read, not only shows the rituals and practices that are pagan rooted, but the stories, symbolism....etc. ALMOST ALL OF IT.
It's actually better to say that there was no distinction of pagan or Christian in early ages, exclusiveness only came about in later centuries.
"The government should be afraid of its people, not the other way around".
I can suggest a much better book, that points out much more interesting traditions that Christianity borrowed from pagan religions that preceeded it. Among them are:
a son of god, born of a mortal virgin woman, who
is born in a manger, in front of 3 shepherds
is born under a miraculous star
turns water into wine at a wedding
gathers 12 followers around him
gathers 3 women around him
heals the sick and casts out demons
calms a tempest by command
is unjustly accused and arrested
is questioned at length by the local sovereign
is executed by being nailed to a tree
dies to redeem the sins of the world
descends to the dead
rises from the dead and ascends into heaven
becomes the judge of the dead
is called by his followers "holy redeemer," "good shepherd," and "king of kings"
Yes, none of these things are original to Christianity. In fact, by the time Christianity emerged from the hellenized Jews in Alexandria, these motiffs were already hundreds and for some of them thousands of years old. Christianity was actually the last religion to tell this story, not the first.
If you want to read a wonderful series of books about this, go to www.timothyfreke.com.
Start with The Jesus Mysteries, then Jesus and the Lost Goddess, and finally The Laughing Jesus.
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
The fact that the authors of these religious texts used familiar literary constructs and narrative motifs does not deny those texts metaphysical veracity or spiritual vitality. We should hardly be surprised that the authors are learned men who made full use of their talents, which were quite naturally shaped by the literary trends of their times and places.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
> familiar literary constructs and narrative motifs
< ha! that's rich. what a nice way to call plagiarism. the only one with real talent here is you.
> metaphysical veracity or spiritual vitality
< beautiful. you leave me speechless. to say nothing with big words takes a big (hu)man indeed.
> which were quite naturally shaped by the literary trends of their times and places.
< literary trends? it's the same story! not a trend.
There was no concept of plagiarism in the ancient world, and neither biblical authors nor their antecedents would have thought that their ideas should be protected from use by others.
Narrative motifs - what you call "the same story" - often have origins that are difficult to pin on one place or another, or even a single nation or person. This of course leaves these motifs wide open to interpretation, and biblical and other ancient authors made use of them for various reasons - familiarity to an audience, effectiveness, poetic and prosaic power. But I would say that narrative motifs that pop up across time and space and culture don't represent plagiarism but rather a sort of universal human attraction towards these kinds of stories.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
The main thrust of the book seems to be: the religious accoutrement that accompany ritualized worship in the modern day is not present in the writings of the Old or New Testaments, and therefore this original form of worship can be returned to with great spiritual results.
This I applaud. It challenges us to read carefully the Old and New Testament authors. It wants us to inject intelligent personal interpretation of primary historical sources into our religious lives, collectively and individually.
But I disagree with the resultant fire under which clerics, ritual, and Tradition have thus come. These things, both in Catholicism and in other sects, have arisen as responses to the spiritual, intellectual, and material conditions of the times and places of practice. That is, re-interpretation and augmentation were found necessary to cope with the times. These changes are not as malicious as the authors portray: perhaps their view stems from a zeal for individual independence from all institutions.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
just where they belong, according to Christ. When you said "the main thrust of the book seems to be..." you gave yourself away. You haven't read it. But it's a wonderful, eye-opening book.
For those with eyes to see, that is.
'Traditions of men' and ritual have nothing to do with the gospel of Christ. If you know the New Testament at all, you know that Christ had very little good to say about clerics, ritual, or tradition, "dommy". Christ didn't peddle religion, tradition, or ritual at all.
As for the Old Testament, the subject book does not deal with it at all; the focus is on the body of Christ as it should be from its birth recorded in the NT, until today and for tomorrow.
There have always been people who seek to be the 'religious ones'...for pay. They don't want to compete (or labor) in a productive pursuit; pitching religion is a much easier gig. If anyone gripes at them for being a bum, they can just accuse them of "attacking God's anointed".
Paul taught that "if any man does not work, let him not eat". The religion industry is facing hard times today because it's the age of information. If I want to know exactly when, where, and by whom your religious racket was founded, I go on the internet and find out in five minutes. Most of the time, I find out that it's some scoundrel squabbling with some hard-nose from some previous religion or denomination. I'd estimate that 90% of American institutional "churches" have this heritage. Their members don't know it, nor do they care. For all they know, their "church" fell from heaven in 1913 and it wouldn't matter to them. Even aside from stark-raving false prophets like Joseph Smith and Abu al-Qasim (aka 'Mohammed') most religious folks are just "in church" to feel good with their version of a deity. Thus they are happy with clerics, traditions, and rituals.
False religion.
In China, India, Pakistan, Greece, Indonesia, Turkey, most of the Middle East, much of Eastern Europe, and more than half the countries of Africa, the follower of the Christ only follows Him in peril of his very life, and that of his family. Christianity there is costly and precious. And real.
This real Christianity is what Viola and Barna's book is about.
I just ordered Frank Viola's sequel book that walks the reader through the actual process of living this new Christianity, "house-church" style (as they still do in most of the world, and as they did in the New Testament). The new book is called Reimagining Christianity and was just released for sale this Monday. I'll review it here after I've read it and considered it a bit.
In response to your claim that I "gave myself away":
You reviewed the book: if anything was misrespresented, it was from your own writing. I never tried to represent myself as having read the book. You have presumably provided an accurate sketch of the book, its argument, method, and evidence.
That being said, your reply only repeated the same sentiments from your review. I have a few other comments but not really anything new to add because I already responded to your review.
You say: "'Traditions of men' and ritual have nothing to do with the gospel of Christ. If you know the New Testament at all, you know that Christ had very little good to say about clerics, ritual, or tradition, "dommy". Christ didn't peddle religion, tradition, or ritual at all."
I did not claim that Jesus talked about establishing a new religion or anything remotely resembling that. My claim is that later tradition, both kinds with the small and capital T, are justified and theologically sustainable responses to historical and spiritual conditions.
You may think that your writing is pithy - "If you know....'dommy'." But your writing stinks of that of a plebeian talking down to another, as if a presumed air of superiority grants you a higher position on the dung hill. Alas, I don't think you're standing on top of it so much as sinking into it.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
Yes, I am very bad that way -- very 'plebian' (is that the word you meant to use?) -- but only with people who shill for religious Tradition with a capital "T"...or canines who post under nicknames or pseudonyms or using other dogs' photos. So I think the pithy, dung-y thing comes from playing charades.
Oh, and from defending the indefensible; it's not me calling the traditions of men indefensible, it was Christ. I'm just repeating His 'pithy' assessment, not trying to pith on you (notice I didn't call you 'dummy'?)
But you do have beautiful ears and a very kind face. Has anybody ever told you that you have the loveliest cheetah-like markings on your snout?
Well, let me be the first, then.
Plebeian is an accepted spelling for the word, it adheres more strictly to a transliteration of the Latin word plebeius.
The capital T Tradition is in reference to Catholic Tradition - of the Scripture and Tradition type.
Your rebuttal has still not moved beyond the summaries of the book's argument which you and I have provided to argue with my original criticism. Basically, the book says that Christ did not explicitly or implicitly approve of ritual, canon, etc. etc; I believe that those things are justified and needed through continued human spiritual experience.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, attended Roman Catholic schools, and was all set to attend RC seminary, when I suddenly got the urge to read outside the prescribed RC canon.
And the rest was history.
Don't worry, I was a Calvinist for a while, too; until I began reading the history of the 'Reformation'. Left that little camp, too. Denominations and religions are anti-Christian in that Christ preached consistently against religious types, and prayed to the Father that denominations wouldn't exist.
The problem with the Roman denomination is that it was the original 'protest-ant' cult; a set of men who grew too big for their britches and in an effort to maintain their 'flock' size (collections till) began using some pretty amazing rules, then some decidedly twisted ones...and then blood and the burning stake.
Not a real convincting 'ministry', that one. But what I learned later on in my stumble after Christ was that the Lutherans and Calvinists really were almost as bloodthirsty when it came to folks that refused to wet their babies and call that Christian baptism. Today, we have warring denominations who pirouette atop even the finest point of doctrine...creating whole new bureaucratic central offices, rulebooks for local assemblies, etc. all under the guise of "maintaining the peace and purity of the Church".
Yeah...where have I heard THAT before!!?
Satis verborum, frater meum.
I'm not really sure what you mean by "protest-ant" or pirouetting atop doctrine. But I think we are at a relative impass - you with a Jesus unencumbered with later intellectual and theological traditions, and I who think that these traditions are useful interpretations and receptions of past texts.
I do wonder where you draw the line for what is sacred and true about Jesus. For sure there are texts and traditions outside of the various bibles to be found - which are authentic and which are not, in your book?
I am glad to see others educated in classics, but frater and meum do not agree.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
those bishops of the church in Rome, and eventually of the man-made, unbiblical Vatican institution that has its own military, its own coinage, its own secret police, and a list of horrific sins longer than my arm. The Roman institution may not be the "whore" mentioned in Revelation, but if it is not, it's close enough to steer clear of, anyway.
[I am NOT indicting individual Roman Catholics! I have many friends and family who remain in that outfit, just as I have many dear friends in the ludicrously-labeled 'Reformed' denominations. I am speaking of man-made religious institutions and their wicked, mendacious leadership; NOT the faithful adherents who only follow by the best lights they have.]
As I said, some of the same institutional horrors have been visited on plain faithful Christ-followers by the "magisterial Reformers" who were actually no reformers at all, but political stablemates of popes and prelates of Rome.
So let's not go on the "authority of the Vatican magisterium" and "who decides what is Scripture, anyway?" trail, because I've been there, done that. For decades. The true follower of Christ (and nothing else) appeals to the Scriptures as contained in the original gospel once delivered unto the saints; the follower of man-made religious traditions appeals to the Vatican magisterium, or the Baptist Faith & Message, or the Westminster Confession...claiming all the while that "Oh, they're not equal to Scripture; they're just ancillary aids to keeping the peace and purity of the Church!"
Yeah...by the stake, or the "third baptism" drowning-pool, right? The 'Reformation' reformed nothing; it only gave followers of Luther and Calvin the political clout that those men yearned for, crushing the non-political mere followers of Christ in the dirt, while (felicitously) de-throning many a corrupt bishop and pope.
Traditions of men breed whole libraries of 'learned treatises'; whole seminaries and long-legged philosophies on points of 'doctrine' taken entirely out of the simple context found in the New Testament: mostly personal letters to early Christians! Imagine taking one sentence out of some love letter from a man to his wife, and building an entire doctrine on it! This is what all the factions of 'Christendom' have done since time out of mind. Christ is nowhere in these doctrines and traditions of men, who build careers out of "being right" by twisting words to fit their agendas!
I am convinced that one can be as "holy" as one likes, and as reverent to a man-made institution...and still end up shoveling coal and gnashing his teeth for all eternity if his faith is in man and his religion, rather than in Christ, Son of God.
As I said earlier, Christ spoke most harshly not to heathen sinners, but to religious men in robes. He called these keepers-of-tradition "whitewashed sepulchers" and "sons of Hell". That throws up just a little bit of a red flag for me! Popes of Rome are only the most obvious such impostors; there are plenty more of them in 'Protestant' circles, with their mega-plex real estate and their mega-book revenues.
When the worms finish with their eye-sockets, we'll see what remains of those works. I should think that some will say, "But Lord, Lord! Didn't we preach in YOUR Name?" and still be thrust into the goat-line.
The value of the subject book will be mostly for 'Protestants' who are just sick of the 'go to church' game every Sunday; seeking the richness they see in Christian lives in other lands, where people are very, very poor but still have Christ.
Men's institutions and traditions are a poor facsimile of that fulness of joy, and many Americans know it.
Tolle, lege.
"So let's not go on the "authority of the Vatican magisterium" and "who decides what is Scripture, anyway?" trail, because I've been there, done that. For decades. The true follower of Christ (and nothing else) appeals to the Scriptures as contained in the original gospel once delivered unto the saints..."
Eventually here your argument becomes circular - you don't want to appeal to the Magisterium because it is a man-made institution, but you want the "original gospel" that was "delivered unto the saints" even though the criteria for the true gospel is equally as man-made as the authority of the Magisterium.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
...with George Barna's prior book, revolution?
If you read that one, you see why he and Frank Viola teamed up on the reprint of Pagan Christianity.
Seriously, if the atheists will stop heckling the book review forum, I recommend this book as one that will make you take a serious look at your family's Sunday routine; perhaps even spark a new chapter in your life, to become a more organic part of body life in Christ.
you mean my sunday routine of sleeping till noon, then getting a warm cup of startbucks coffee needs to be reevaluated?
this revolution book by george barna is about ceiling cat?
Boy howdy...some book reviewers here. We've got skinheads, outhouses, worshippers of Nut, and modern propheteers, all lining up to say their piece on this 300-hit thread...
And not one of them has even read the book.
it only shows 300 because i hit 'refresh' 295 times as i was waiting for you to respond about those doubts you said you had about your faith.
You were asking about this gentleman's doubts before he came to believe in Jesus Christ, but apparently got no answer. I'll share my doubts with you, perhaps you'll find them interesting.
I never really cared too much about church or anything like that, but I guess that I did believe in God and Heaven without much thought. Then I got to college and learned about Evolution in my biology classes. As I began to learn the science behind Evolutionary Theory, I began to accept the conclusions of Evolutionary Theory, again without much thought. There was no moment where I ever stopped believing in God, I just kind of stopped over time.
When I got to medical school, the first course was Anatomy. We were dissecting the hand and upper extremity, and I looked at the muscles in the forearm which flex the fingers. I saw the tiny nerves innervating these muscles, which had tendons attached to them, which inserted on the bones. When I pulled on them, they obviously moved. And I realized how complex of a machine this was. An impulse to move the fingers originates in the cerebral cortex, and then that travels through down through the spinal cord, through the brachial plexus, to the peripheral nerves in the forearm, which excites the muscle to move, which then pulls on the tendon to move the bone in the finger. I realized that there is no way that this incredibly well-designed machinery just "evolved" randomly. Over time I've begun to understand that the scientific fact which supports Evolutionary Theory does not necessarily support its' conclusions concerning the origin of life.
by William Paley (which this argument is a variant of)- - has, unfortunately, been decimated by philosophers repeatedly. But it is a compelling argument.
For a brief response to this argument and why the analogy is flawed, see below by Bob Riggins:
http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/watchdesert.htm
i was interested in dmzuniga's doubts. i was asking for details because i knew there were none. he makes up anything he feels he has to, to try to convince people of ceiling cat.
i'm not at all interested in any doubts you might have had.
skinhead.
"Wow" is all I have to say about the comments here. As a Mormon missionary in Dallas I was once confronted with the "Christianity sounds like warmed over paganism to me" argument--and this from a once member of my Church. The one thought that I have about that contention is that paganism is younger than Christianity.
If Christians believe that Christ was ordained before the foundation of the earth to be the Savior of humankind, then it seems to follow reason that Adam was taught by God about this eventuality, and that Adam taught this doctrine also to his children, and that it was passed down, and corrupted, until the days of Noah. Paganism is a result of the corruption of truth, and that is why some paganistic practices resemble some aspects of Christian belief. The descendants of Noah fell away from the truth, and so God then restored the truth through Abraham, but eventually his descendants were seduced by the Gods of Egypt during their long sojourn there. Moses was then taught the truth by God, and the truth was again restored--though in a lesser form due to the wickedness of the children of Israel. Eventually the truth had to be restored again, and updated to its full bloom, by the Messiah Himself. As Christianity was perverted by the Roman emperors, and hacked apart during councils like that of Nicea, Christianity was again in need of restoration in the spring of 1820 when Joseph Smith was visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son. This is to be the final restoration of the truth before the Christ returns again.
The children of Israel practiced animal sacrifice, in similitude of the sacrifice of the Savior, as a way of forgiveness of sin before the Atonement of Christ had even come to pass. This looking forward to the sacrifice of the Son of God demonstrated that the Atonement of Christ, and the doctrines of salvation, are very old, and actually as old as this earth, and as old as the universe our Creator has created for us. Thus, Christianity, and it's attendant doctrines, has existed far longer than any pagan conception of religion. Paganism is actually a rip-off of the doctrines of truth that have been around since the first man was given breath.
-Ether 8-24
"[If a man] makes his vices public, though they be such as seem principally to affect himself, (as drunkenness, or the like) they then become, by the bad example they set, of pernicious effects to society; and therefore it is then the business of human laws to correct them. Here the circumstance of publication is what alters the nature of the case."
-William Blackstone
> in the spring of 1820 when Joseph Smith was visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son.
speechless...
Either you are religious or you are not. Either way is your choice. The discussion here is one over religion, and what aspects of which religion proceeded from what sources. If, as a Christian, I believe that Adam walked and talked with God in the Garden of Eden, and Abraham conversed with God, and Moses talked with God, and Moses and 70 Israelite Priests saw God, and Isaiah had a vision of God on His throne, and the Son of God walked the earth in New Testament times, then why could it not also follow that Joseph Smith saw and talked with God? If there was ever a time in human history where the plain truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ needed to be restored, it seems our time would be it. With so many different takes on what constitutes Christian doctrine, and so many churches founded around the same Biblical text, with such different ideas of what it teaches, it seems that a time for restoring what Christianity really is about is entirely necessary. Restoration is nothing new in Biblical doctrine. As I mentioned above, restorations have occurred at various times throughout history when the doctrines of God had become corrupted by mankind. In each of those times God called a new Prophet, taught him the truth, and used him as an instrument to proclaim that truth to mankind. Joseph Smith was the new Prophet of the modern day restoration. If you can believe in a God, then why not that God cares enough about His children to remind them, from time to time, of what His will is for them? I think it is a glorious and simple concept that demonstrates God's eternal love for each of us.
One thing that the conspiratorial among us might find interesting, though, is that the Book of Mormon, which was given to Joseph Smith, contains in it a warning against a "secret combination" in our time. It states in the section of the Book of Mormon called the book of Ether, chapter 8, verses 24-25:
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning.
This is part of the warning of the Prophets of our modern day--that a secret conspiracy is among our people, and that it is working to overthrow our freedom. The Prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have taught this. One Prophet in particular, Ezra Taft Benson--who was secretary of agriculture under Pres. Eisenhower--specifically warned of a secret conspiracy to overthrow the freedom of America. He was ridiculed by most Mormons, but he taught the truth about the conspiracy straight from the Book of Mormon that was given to Joseph Smith in the first half of the 19th century. Benson knew what was going on, and even though most members of his own Church rejected the message, he taught that America was doomed if it did not repent and throw down those who sought to destroy the freedom that God had given us through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The restoration of the Gospel was about bringing freedom--true freedom--to all people, through political and religious means.
i'm not familiar with the whole mormon story as i have no interest in it.
i was just blown away by this claim you made that ceiling cat came down to visit this mr smith in 1820.
i have not had much contact with delusional people since i left the religion i was forced into as a child, so reading absurdity like this really does leave me spechless.
that's all i'm saying.
Look, big guy, this is a book review on a Christian book, okay? I'm not going to debate atheists. I will correct the record, but I will not waste my time with you. Nor should you waste yours, with me. Trust me, I'm just not arrogant enough to be an atheist. I have often had doubts -- deep ones -- about me faith. But over the course of time, further reading, study, and thoughtful prayer led to clarification.
The funny thing about self-proclaimed 'atheists' is that they claim never to doubt their religion (and I assure you, it's a religion!) while simultaneously claiming to be 'open-minded searchers'.
As an engineer and educator, Christian faith is more supportable and rational than atheism so I shall remain a Christian. I'm just fine with you remaining an atheist; it isn't my job to "save" you or haggle with you. People can't save other people, and they look foolish when they try.
I never said, or even suggested, that "the Bible was borrowing from [earlier] religions".
You built a straw man, and you chopped his head right off, Scott. Bully for you.
Sheath your rubber sword, oh Warrior of Nut!
Ummm.. where do I ever suggest I am an Athiest? Athiests KNOW. I maintain, that one cannot know. But I also maintain the probabilty of god being as described by any earthly creature is as close to zero as one can imagine. So I am approaching Athiesm, but never attaining it...
But in practice, Athiesm IS NOT a religion, it is an absence of belief in something others claim to believe in. Just as an empty jar compared to a jar full of pickles is not a jar of condiments, Athiesm is not a religious belief at all. Trying to make athiesm a religion just tells me you think humans NEED to have religion (a rationalization to help you deal with the vast hours you waste on religion, perhaps?) Truth be told, most athiest just shrug their shoulders at the gullibilty of the "faithful", and go on to other activities. The only reason an Athiest has in confronting the silly beliefs of "believers", is that they encroach on our lives in too many deleterious ways. They get themselves unified and involve themselves in politics. They lie and steal from old people, poor people, and gullible, simple-minded folk. I could go on... but you get the point.
"As an engineer and educator, Christian faith is more supportable and rational than atheism so I shall remain a Christian".
OKAY. Support away. You admit to the suggestion that the bible is not a godly scribe but a plagerism of other beliefs, and yet you worship one of the fabrications and claim it to be "more supportable" than the simple notion that it is all made up...
From an historical, sociological viewpoint, one can observe all cultures making up stuff to appease the fear of death and explain the unknowable and seemingly profound. I have over 3500 names of human gods on a list of my old computer, and that is a partial list. A rational view therefore, would be that humans make stuff up, leading to the conclusion that Jesus was also made up.
What is rational about believing in make-believe?
Nothing.
"People can't save other people, and they look foolish when they try."
Is that yours? That's awesome. It should be a t-shirt. Not being sarcastic, I really like it. :)
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
Hey, Tom!
Yes, I've been following Christ for almost 35 years and have seen literally thousands of "soul-winning" attempts...or read of them...or heard about them on radio, etc
It is very clear in Scripture that one person can't "win" another. I think the new verb form is especially telling; you hear a lot of 'Babdists' (that's how it's pronounced here in Texas) say..."Hey, we're going to soul-win tomorrow evening in my neighborhood; wanna join us?"
It's just embarrassing; not the grammar as much as the wacky theology. Christ really doesn't need the help of saved sinners, to try to "save" the lost. Pardon the pun, but it's a lost cause.
Now mind you, atheists are a good deal more embarrassing! But that's for you to work on, Tom, while I work on my team over here, OK? Go ahead, post an atheist book review for all of your clan here at BTM; you're a surprisingly large (or disproportionately vocal) bunch around these parts.