I was site-seeing through Jeremy’s blog the other day and came across a few fine posts from other bloggers, so I thought that I might share:
Continue reading “A Few (Older) Posts on the Rise of (Atheist) Fundamentalism”
Jul 07 2009
Can you explain away Christianity?
Two posts which are somewhat related – two questions for you to think about.
Let’s set it up:
Let’s say that Christianity is an imagined community from the ground up. No Resurrection of a political Jesus. No miracles. No signs and wonders. No fulfillment of prophecies. Let’s say that the earliest written accounts of this myth called the Son of God, Jesus, was made by a disenchanted Pharisee who took up the rallying cry of a dead Jew. Let’s just say that the biblical accounts of the Resurrection of Christ and the beginning of the Church from Pentecost onward is little more than children’s fairy tales, told to urge rebellion against Nero.
But, we have to answer the history provide for in the Talmud and in other secular sources. Further, while we may discount the miracles of Acts, let’s say we take for a moment the life of Paul – that disenchanted, no good, Pharisee. He preached a risen Christ 30 years after it was said to have happened. He was there, after all, then Stephen had his life exercised from him for speaking in that name of Jesus Christ. He must have known that Jesus was alive and well or dead and buried.
Yet, something happened to that Pharisee where he not only took up the banner of that dead rebel, but began to move it away from the Jewish roots to a combined system of Jew and Gentile, Male and Female, Bond and Free. And others joined him.
Of course, he met only a few of the close followers of the dead man. Surely, he would have not mistaken their deep seated ‘he is still with us’ mythology for an actual account of the Resurrection – not enough to rehearse it to a physician.
How can we explain away Christianity if there was a sudden explosion of this new myth which not only saw people willing die – those people that had heard the message of the rebellion from others – but also the closest followers of the decaying man? And what about this Paul fellow? He died too. He killed to prevent the message from being spread. Then he died to spread it.
We can explain away a few hundred people believing a man is a god or a lord, but can we explain thousands to tens of thousands of people who heard the message, who turned from killing to dying for it?
Here are those two articles -
So we are left with options. Either take the NT as it is, more or less; accept an historical analysis that raises more questions than it answers; . . . . or or or . . . .
And
Assuming its true, He’s God. He offers you a life that is radically different; he offers you the opportunity to live forever; he offers you the ability to live to the fullest imaginable extent, IF you buy into his presentation, assuming he really is who he says he is.
We hear an awfully lot about what the message of Christ cannot be true, why He was a really a political rebel, and ever increasing attacks upon our faith – yet, even if you take away the Scriptures, how can you explain away Christianity?
