Christianity: not stupid

yupamiralda

I grew up in a protestant christian congregation. I've been fairly serious about it at various points in my life and it's interesting to me now to think about what christianity meant to me (ie, what about myself did I value that I thought christianity sanctified? and what did these different models posit about nature and other humans) at these different points in my life.

I am in possession of a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. It takes hebrew and greek words and lists which verses they occur in as well as containing a good dictionary (it lists approximate synonyms as well as what words the entry is derived from). It's a very large book.

It would be a long post if I detailed these different models of Christianity and the evolution of my thought through and out of these models. And anyway that's not what's important. If you care to dip into the Bible(if you can overcome your disgust), what I'd say about it is: The stories of Jacob and Joseph in Genesis are good illustrations of a successful individualistic rebellion and an interesting strategy of dealing with temporal authority, respectively. My political ideal is something like the Book of Judges, which certain people will find to be a hilarious position.

But there's two more general remarks I want to make. First of all, Christianity works. I mean seriously, do you think it would be so popular if it didn't? There are a lot of different varieties of Christianity, and they serve a function for adherents.

"rejecting things from the inside" is, in my opinion, a better method then purely intellectual contemplation. I don't reject Christianity because it's stupid. I reject it because the more I think about it, the more awful it is. And I had to think, what if the christian god exists? what if all this is true? And I decided, that even if I'm going to hell for it, that that God (the Father as distinguished from the Son)is such an incomprehensibly bad motherfucker that I'm not going to lie to him out of fear. Out of respect, I'll be honest and say "I couldn't accept your Son". And that might get me punishment in this world and perhaps for all of eternity, but I'm gonna do it. Christianity is Nihilism.

I'm not an atheist now, and I don't think anybody really is (orgasms and heroin work as gods, eg). But I take a more instrumentalist view. It's still necessary, to me, to learn about "states of the soul" from the inside. If I don't think somebody has lived in the places they talk about, I think they're much less trustworthy. Tourists are not very reliable reporters.

The New Testament is one of the ugliest texts ever written, if you really think about it. But if you're an altruist, read it and ask yourself why you aren't a Christian. If you want a God of Pity, it's there. Egalitarianism is a offspring of Christianity: "All equal in the eyes of God" became Jefferson's supposedly secular formulation. And I look at what happened to the Vikings and basicially, independent farmers and townspeople like craftmen and shopkeepers made common cause to displace the cheiftain elite. Some of the warriors had seen Christendom and brought back the seemingly fantastic tales of gaudy cathedrals and other fruits of political centralization. Rejecting Christianity means rejecting almost everything about the modern world. It's impossible (well, totally impractical) to be a reactionary in matters like this, if only because only the faintest of traces of non-christian culture remain in the West. And that leads to Nietzsche's position: conservatism is impossible, because purely defensive positions are hopeless. You are compelled to create(or you could just laugh at other people and feel smart). But ex nihilo is impossible for us mere humans. You can look at the wreckage of the West as a junkyard swarming with crack addicts and gangsters and figure out what parts you want to build with.

An interesting thing about the Hebrew in Genesis is that "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" is not a good translation. Mine would be "the tree of knowledge of what's useful and what isn't"

SnowyChainsaw

My only issue with religion is that it has a tendency to perpetuate a cult-like mentality and denounces rational inquiries based on empirical evidence. To that end it is extremely good at subjugating a population into unquestioning loyalty which, in my opinion, is a terrible thing.

yupamiralda

The thing is, if you follow skepticism to the depths, you realize what shaky ground you're on. I look at what people think about the stock market and there's a lot, even mostly, non-rational. I default to the empirical but the ultimate questions can't be solved by it. All authority is subjugation, so do you want to be on top or on bottom? There's no ultimate outside.

SnowyChainsaw

Its not that I want people to be skeptical of everything, only that I think it is important to have the critical thinking skills that skepticism develops. Most people are not contemplating the ultimate question but being able to analyse day to day questions critically is important to building a better society.
I agree: all authority is subjugation. Nevertheless indoctrinating a population into never questioning authority is quite different from laying out a set of agreed upon laws to protect the population's rights. Not everyone can be at the top, so we have to look out for those at the bottom.

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SnowyChainsaw

@tim wood

"Ok, but here's the question: critical thinking is the name of an attitude taken toward a subject matter. In application it consists in asking questions."

Exactly, questioning the concepts a person is exposed to is important. Not just The Bible, but everything. Your favorite political candidate, the price of a loaf of bread, whether or not milk is good for you. My point is only that Religion is both very good at discouraging critical thinking and has an inherent interest in doing so. The specific questions are not relevant, only that questions are allowed, better yet encouraged, to be asked.

Sir2u

I am in possession of a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. It takes hebrew and greek words and lists which verses they occur in as well as containing a good dictionary (it lists approximate synonyms as well as what words the entry is derived from). It's a very large book. — yupamiralda

The problem with that is that you have no idea what the original books purpose were. It is fine and dandy to get a good translation of them, but what the actually mean we will probably never know. Ten thousand years from now, after the destruction and rebuilding of civilization a couple of times, they might dig up a collection of Harry Potter books and decipher the unreadable scrawling on the page. They might then conjecture that the people of our times had magical powers, simply because they have no idea why it was written.

But there's two more general remarks I want to make. First of all, Christianity works. I mean seriously, do you think it would be so popular if it didn't? — yupamiralda

Works for whom?
The rich ranks of the church maybe. Even the pope has a bitch of a time swallowing the "good life" those bastards live.
All of the poor people expected to donate their few spare coins to the church, just to keep those mentioned above.

The only way I agree that it works is as a control mechanism, to keep the riffraff in their places.

Tourists are not very reliable reporters. — yupamiralda

At least they will not be biased.

Deleteduserrc

↪yupamiralda

I liked your post. I'm a lapsed Christian, but with a great deal of sympathy for christianity and christians.

What I wanted to point out, in my post, is a certain tension in your thought.

And I had to think, what if the christian god exists? what if all this is true? And I decided, that even if I'm going to hell for it, that that God (the Father as distinguished from the Son)is such an incomprehensibly bad motherfucker that I'm not going to lie to him out of fear. Out of respect, I'll be honest and say "I couldn't accept your Son". And that might get me punishment in this world and perhaps for all of eternity, but I'm gonna do it

But I take a more instrumentalist view..You can look at the wreckage of the West as a junkyard swarming with crack addicts and gangsters and figure out what parts you want to build with...An interesting thing about the Hebrew in Genesis is that "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" is not a good translation. Mine would be "the tree of knowledge of what's useful and what isn't"

On the one hand, you say that you value respect and honesty to the extent that you would be willing to suffer for eternity to uphold those values (not a small price to pay!). On the other, you say that you're more interested in what's useful, what's pragmatic. That people, maybe, miss the point, because christianity, qua social force, works.

There are a couple different ways to think about tensions like this.

One, the psychoanalytic approach, is to consider that a contradiction ususally covers over an unspeakable desire. In simpler terms: What you want to say, you don't feel comfortable saying - not in public, or to yourself.

The other is the (quasi) hegelian one. Contradictions suggest that the way you've organized all this intellectually is off-kilter, and you need to rework it, re-set the parameters, in a way that reshapes the cognitive landscape so that these ideas can better nestle.

I'm not sure which applies to you, or if there's a third or fourth option that my be better-suited. You're your own guy, or girl ( but probably guy) and I just don't know.

BUT

I'll give you my hunch, take it or leave it.

The value of respect and honesty over and against god might be a kind of self-valuation. (Stick with me, I'm not just doing a dumb virtue-reversal thing) The supposedly pragmatic take, the one which you think is valid for society as a whole, yet not for yourself, shows that you hold worldly folk to a different standard than the one to which you hold yourself. Take the two together: You hold yourself to a brutally difficult standard, one with infinitely painful repercussions, while casting judgment on the world for casting judgment on christian thought. This is weird because you yourself cast judgment, so why oughn't they? Well because, even by their own standards, pragmatic ones, christianity does the job better. They've cut any higher values out from under them, left only what's pragmatic, yet still they inveigh against christianity even when, pragmatically, it would help.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us in a very weird place. You have gone above and outside christianity and are willing to subject yourself to a horrible fate, in the name of respect and honesty, while suggesting that the others, who think they have gone above and outside christianity, are actually all the more in need of it, because that alone ( by their own standards no less!) can relieve their ills.

We all know how rationalization works. It lets us live out the myths and stories of childhood while recasting them in a sensible, worldly light which is more palatable to our adult selves

With that in mind, consider: You are willing to suffer the most miserable of all fates in service of a higher virtue, while thinking of others as people blinded by confused values, people who ought to follow christianity for their own sake. But - but! - not to the point that you have, which exceeds it, and which entails deep suffering. You may suffer terribly, but they shouldn't.

Well, what's the myth that comes to mind?

Here's the other thing about rationalization (and, in another vein, poetic inspiration). We tend to reflexively devalue the things we most desire. Now, that's not to say we oughtn't criticize the stuff we don't like. Rounded and reasonable criticism isn't always, or even usually, misplaced adoration; It's generally clear-eyed recognition of a problem. But when criticism grows hyperbolic and insistent, well now here's something worth attending to, and closely.

The New Testament is one of the ugliest texts ever written, if you really think about it.

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BC

↪SnowyChainsaw

But then you have to account for all of the excellent colleges and universities that were started by and are run by Christians. Apparently it is possible to be intellectual and Christian, and secular all at the same time.

BC

Ten thousand years from now, after the destruction and rebuilding of civilization a couple of times, they might dig up a collection of Harry Potter books and decipher the unreadable scrawling on the page. — Sir2u

The thing about the Bible (and other writings from the ancient world) is that they are not 10,000 years old, and civilization hasn't been destroyed and rebuilt a couple of times. There is quite a bit of continuity in the culture of the last 2500 years which makes these texts (not just the Bible) accessible and meaningful.

The Jews never stopped reading and using their sacred writings.

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BC

↪yupamiralda

As much as someone steeped in mainline Protestant Christianity and who found it useful can, I call myself an atheist. But I didn't throw the baby Jesus out with the baptismal water--so to speak. I'm way too old now to reorganize my personality, so Christianity remains part of my 'operating system' but I find it necessary to do without the belief system. It's something of a relief.

I agree that Christianity is THE primary contributor to western civilization, not in a straight line from Jesus to Thomas Jefferson, of course. Not even in a very crooked line between the two. Too much happened over those 2000 years.

Sir2u

The Jews never stopped reading and using their sacred writings. — Bitter Crank

But did the Jews actually write it directly from the source they claim or copy it from somewhere else?
There are plenty of creation myths about and some contain elements similar to the one in the bible.

The Old Testament contains at least a dozen creation “stories”. Two of these stories are told in Genesis 1 and 2, in addition to the creation story in Job 38 and the fragment in Job 26:7-13 among others. These stories are not always consistent with each other, so some will hold similarities to contemporary creation myths, while others contain contrasts.

https://graecomuse.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/in-the-beginning-biblical-creation-myths-vs-others-around-the-mediterranean/

Creation stories from the ancient Middle East:

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre writes that one of his articles:

"... is an attempt to briefly identify some of the Ancient Near Eastern Motifs and Myths from which the Hebrews apparently borrowed, adapted, and reworked in the Book of Genesis (more specifically Genesis 1-11).

It is my understanding that Genesis' motifs and characters, God, Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and Noah, are adaptations and transformations of characters and events occurring in earlier Near Eastern Myths. In some cases several characters and motifs from different myths have been brought together and amalgamated into Genesis' stories.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/com_geba.htm

A lot of the old testament could quite easily be a historical narrative of actually events that have had god smeared over them for someone's convenience. As Tim points out in his post,

Books like the Bible - the Bible really is a special case - weren't just thrown together willy-nilly. Smart people wrote/compiled them - what they mean is not-so-easy to get. — tim wood

But my question has always been "why?"
Can anyone prove that they compiled the bible according to god's commands or that it is exactly as he said it should be? Surely if god had order the compiling of the bible he would not have let it be revised and edited along the years, it would have been perfect as it was in the beginning.
And why would any god that wants his creation to believe in him make things so complicated that only certain people could understand him?

As I stated above we do not know the real purpose of the writings in the bible, we are only guessing that they mean what the churches tell us it means. And a lot of them do not even agree on that.

charleton

I grew up in a protestant christian congregation. — yupamiralda

Maybe you need to get out and see something of the world.
Go here!
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@13.4123884,103.866747,67m/data=!3m1!1e3
Sit in the centre of the temple and a man in an orange cloth will come to talk to you. You will not know his language but he will know yours.
In that moment your petty Protestant world will be as dust on a flea.

Sir2u

A good part of it falls under the categories of exegesis and hermeneutics. — tim wood

And who decides what is right and wrong interpretation of the bible and based on what do they decide?
No one alive today or even 19 centuries ago had a lot of first hand knowledge of the people that wrote the different books of the bible. So how would they know the actual purpose of the writing? It is easy to say that it is explained in the bible, but for all of my reading it I have never found a place in it that says "I am writing this to explain a certain situation". That is why it has to be interpreted by other people, because it is not clear what it means.

In short, understanding the Bible is a lot of work. If you don't do the work, then you cannot really criticize it. The best you can do is criticize your own imperfect understanding of it. And this is true of any difficult text - the Bible is not special in this respect. — tim wood

Why should a simple book that purports to be a guide for good living need specialized help to understand it? Did god not want his people to understand him? That sounds like a bad idea for a god.

For example, to dismiss the Bible because of its cosmology in Genesis ("In the beginning, God created...") is pretty much a demonstration of ignorance, and inability or unwillingness to read a book.

Btw, I have been such an ignorant person for most of my life.Now I just try to read books, including the Bible to see if I can understand what they say. Attitude can make a difference! — tim wood

I do not dismiss the bible just for that, it is actually quite a good book. I have read it several times but as with many of the thousands of books I have read, I do not try to hard to retain content.
I dismiss the bible for the purpose it is serving. It is a collection of writings from ancient times that can only be "proven" by cross referencing it with other selected document while ignoring other documents that fail to agree with it. It is used to control the people that serve it and most of the time to make rich a few that promote it. Billy Graham being a good example of that, but there are many more on the list.

I read books, I ponder their meanings or validity, I might discuss them sometimes.
I read almost any kind of writing, my wife has even complained that I sometimes pay more attention to the cornflakes box than to her, which is not true of course.

BC

But did the Jews actually write it directly from the source they claim or copy it from somewhere else?

There are plenty of creation myths about and some contain elements similar to the one in the bible. — Sir2u

Yes, of course. We can assume that parts of the Jewish scripture were 'accumulated' from tribal sources, some of it was borrowed, and some of it was composed, and some of it developed from liturgical practice. The same thing is true of the New Testament.

But that isn't the question I was addressing. I said "the Jews never stopped reading their sacred work". Whenever, however, wherever it was composed, accumulated, borrowed, or developed, the Jews used the texts in Judea and took the texts with them into the diasporas. The synagogues preceded and survived the destruction of the Temple and, and it was in the synagogue that scripture usage was maintained.

There was no major break in the tradition and use of scripture -- it isn't like the scripture was lost in 100 BCE and then rediscovered in 500 CE or 1500 CE.

Christian Gnostic writings, or the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' met a fate of loss and rediscovery, but the Jewish and Christian Bible didn't meet such a fate.

SnowyChainsaw

↪tim wood

Your right, I am talking in general terms. All I am trying to say is that Religion discourages critical thinking. It does this by claiming it already has all the answers.

But, to be more specific: personally I'd ask Religion whether or not they feel people are capable of creating an agreeable moral code without the need for a omnipotent, celestial deity laying one out for them and, if not, whether or not they think that contradicts the claim that people are created by said omnipotent deity in His image?

↪Bitter Crank

Of course you can be intelligent and Religious. In fact I'd credit Religion with crating the foundations of scientific inquiry. However; whereas science began to accept that we do not have all the answers and that we should begin questioning everything we thought we knew, Religion forbid any inquiries that suggested they might be wrong. Science is the natural evolution of Religious principles and now that Religion is all but obsolete, they must double down on indoctrinating people into rigid thought processes in order to maintain their influence.

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SnowyChainsaw

↪tim wood

Yeah, I guess my question could be a trick but only in that it highlights a fundamental contradiction I feel Religious ideology has always had by trapping anyone answering into contradicting themselves. I understand that not all Religious people ascribe to that particular principle (that God exists and created everything), nevertheless it is an almost universal foundation upon which Religion is based.
I wouldn't call that a straw man, but I could be wrong.

"It cannot be the text, because you don't know the text."

A rather bold assumption, and a mostly incorrect one. I have read The Bible, but not for many years. I was brought up a Christian and turned away from Religion when it refused or avoided answering the questions I had.

My issue is with the applied principles of Religious doctrine in politics and the daily lives of its subscribers. That includes Organised Religion but is not necessarily limited to it.

Sir2u

But that isn't the question I was addressing. I said "the Jews never stopped reading their sacred work". — Bitter Crank

Does the continuity of fake news make it real?
While I agree that I exaggerated a bit with the 10 thousand years, the idea is still valid. No one today knows where any of the bible really came from. I am not talking about the books themselves, that is well documented in many cases. But the ideas contained in them, where do they really come from?

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible is a book that explains the bible, but what purpose did the people that wrote it have, can we ever be sure that it was not to try and convince everyone that the bible is true?

Sir2u

↪charleton

You have just got to love street view. Anyone now can say that they have seen so many places.
I am adding this one to my list of museums, parks, zoos and other interesting places to visit on street view.

BC

But the ideas contained in them, where do they really come from? — Sir2u

Why, God -- of course!

Joking, of course.

In The Ruin of the Roman Empire, A New History by James J. O'Donnell, the author observes that after the Babylonian Captivity, when the Persians sent the Judeans back to Jerusalem, the holy scriptures were "rediscovered". O'Donnell asks, just how were the scriptures suddenly re-discovered, and what, exactly, did they (Ezra et al) rediscover??? O'Donnell doesn't know, and of course nobody else knows what they rediscovered either. The Babylonian captivity was a major disruption in Jewish religious continuity.

I suppose a remnant of the Judean population remained, and over the course of a couple of generations they kept a copy under a rock somewhere. Or maybe the Samaritans who weren't taken away, kept a copy for them, under a different rock.

My honest answer is that over time various creative people made the scripture up -- everything from "In the beginning..." down to the Apocryphal books. They sat there, composed in their heads, and then delivered well-honed texts at the appropriate time. People used to be able to do that; then writing came along and pffft: Ability gone. After that they had to use lambskin or papyrus to compose. Or clay tablets. All very clunky compared to a Mac desktop.

Just like people used to be able to find their way around the block before GPS devices were put in cars.

Sir2u

My honest answer is that over time various creative people made the scripture up -- everything from "In the beginning..." down to the Apocryphal books. They sat there, composed in their heads, and then delivered well-honed texts at the appropriate time. — Bitter Crank

And then the churches got hold of them and saw the opportunity to become the bosses in the name of the lord, Amen.

Just like people used to be able to find their way around the block before GPS devices were put in cars. — Bitter Crank

On a side and rather irrelevant note, I have been using google maps and street view to visit my childhood homes and schools. I have amazed myself by being able to actually find my way around by memory to some of the places I used to go to. And not by remembering all of the names and addresses but by remembering locations.

BC

↪Sir2u

Street view is pretty amazing. Not taking the actual video of a given street, but storing this huge mass of data in such a way that Google can deliver a clear video image of a drive down one of millions (millions?) of streets, and can serve it up in just a few seconds.

Sir2u

↪Bitter Crank

I found a statue somewhere in Africa, no idea where I was visiting, called the Fetish Priest. Thought that was kind of funny.

SteliosM

To be honest I dont understand why any god should exist in the first place,

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SnowyChainsaw

↪tim wood

My mistake and fair enough. Take it easy.

Christianity: not stupid

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