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Being like Jesus

There’s an incredible number of Christians who are taking it back to the basics and focussing on simply living like Jesus.

In fact, there are many who no longer call themselves Christian but still hold the example of Jesus as their guiding light.

This is a vast improvement on the traditional religion, which is entirely built on the teachings of Paul, with a dash of colour from a couple of other writers who were popular at the time.

Pualine theology “works” as a religion very well, which is why it’s stuck around for a couple of thousand years, but despite any beneficial effects from its efforts to address existential questions, it’s mostly been the source of destructive divisions, wars and genocides, hatred and bigotry. But yes, there has also been a constant thread of loving, caring and empathetic people who’ve managed to cherry-pick their way through scripture to create something that’s more universally embracing.

But my point here is about focussing on Jesus, and just living by his words and example.

Here’s the thing – “the elephant in the room” – ignored, probably because most people don’t know what to do about it; we have absolutely no idea what Jesus actually said or did – none – zilch.

Yes, we have the gospels, but that’s it. No other written records apart from a few other gospels that generally aren’t taken seriously.

The gospel writers were not eyewitnesses. This is common knowledge and beyond dispute. We can only guess who they were.

Perhaps these stories were from oral traditions, or there may have been an earlier source document that Mark used, or maybe Mark was the source for the others. It’s all speculation, because there simply isn’t enough evidence to know.

Then there’s the simple fact that these gospel writers were already immersed in Pauline theology – they were writing from that doctrinal environment.

So there is absolutely no way we can honestly and genuinely say we know what Jesus said and did. It’s all assumptions.

This leaves us in a very awkward place.

The apparent teachings of Jesus are really good stuff – I’ve got no argument with that – mostly. There are a few things that are pretty sus and have to be heavily processed through various theological gymnastics, but it is a good basis for life. Plus there’s obscure references to eastern philosophies thrown into the mix if we care to look. But even that can be just confirmation bias.

Perhaps we need to stop, and take stock of this ancient religion entirely. Do we really need it? Is it possible that despite its popularity, it’s basically redundant? Do we have the guts to admit it hasn’t been the amazing cure to humanity’s woes that it promised to be?

Are we brave enough to even ask these questions?

 

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Christian Universalism sucks

Embracing Universalism was part of my deconstruction journey.

It was the only thing that made any genuine sense and had an ounce of integrity in relation to the foundational premises of Christian theology.

Sure, I knew all the traditional reasons why not “all” were saved, but no matter how I juggled theology with my personal sense of justice, forgiveness and love, any concept of hell, and all that entailed, was more like the work of a psychopath than a loving god.

So Universalism was the obvious solution, and there is plenty of scripture that can be cherry-picked to support it.

Recently, I’ve had a long conversation with a couple of Universalists, which brought to light the problem that I’d always wrestled with about the whole topic.

Universalists are just a group with another set of dogma that sounds much more loving, and yes, it does paint god in a far more gracious and loving light. However, it’s still based entirely on yet another set of interpretations of ambiguous scriptures (which is the basis of every single denomination, sect and movement in the Christian ecosystem).

But what I’ve consistently found, and what I was also guilty of, is the level of patronising arrogance displayed by its supporters!

This isn’t, however, obvious on the surface and you have to dig a bit deeper to uncover it, and when you do, they can get quite nasty, but in a loving, passive aggressive way!

You see, god is sooo magnanimous and forgiving that eventually, everyone will discover how awesome Jesus is and how he made it possible for god to love everyone and save them all. They no longer speak in terms of judgement and condemnation, but the infinite love of their god.

They embrace that sense of superiority that most Christians have and take it to a whole new level. No matter what you believe, or how you behave, ultimately OUR god will have the last say and take you in no matter what. You’ll end up being transformed by his “presence” and love, whether you want it or not.

Our god will eventually give you no choice, and if you challenge him/us on that point, you are just ignorant and we’ll have pity on you and settle back in a smug confidence that you’ll see we were right all along.

All communication becomes reduced to this arrogant, patronising smugness, wrapped in a veneer of pseudo love, that ultimately, is just as ego-feeding as all other forms of religion.

Then they get upset because you challenge them on the point that they are still assuming THEIR god is the only true god, and their entire premise is nothing more than gaslighting.

So yeah, nice try guys, but no cigar.

It’s still the same dogma and subjective beliefs, just wrapped in nicer packaging.

 

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Proof of God!!

You can’t prove god exists, and I can’t prove he doesn’t!

Sure, there are all sorts of philosophical angles you can take on the issue, but in the end, no one can prove anything.

What you CAN do is present theories based on subjective observations. They can be beautiful and quite functional theories that meet some of our emotional needs, but they are theories none the less.

You can present ancient writings from other cultures that express everything from of wisdom writings through to the nature of various divinities, but you can’t “prove” that this god is actually real.

You then have to ask yourself what “proof” is. What I find extraordinary is so many christians saying that if you can’t see the “proof” in everything around you then you are [insert derogatory name here]. But of course, if it’s not obvious through examining all the evidence, then it isn’t proof at all. Proof, by the very nature of the word, means there is no ambiguity or doubt. The worst “proof” offered however is the bible. Irrespective of however one may interpret the writings in the bible, they are still subject to the same demands of proof. As I say, if the bible was indeed proof, there would be no ambiguity and everyone who read it would be convinced. The bible is like any other sacred writings – full of interesting cultural stories – myths and legends, various types of wisdom, justifications for cultural traditions etc… everything except “proof” of god.

I just recently saw a video from a highly qualified physicist who claimed that the theories about the big bang being caused by quantum fluctuations, that are pretty much universally accepted in the field, are proof of god! Sorry Mr Professor, they are simply proof that there is a greater level of physics that we don’t understand yet.

And as for atheists (yes, you don’t get away unscathed either), you can dismantle theology entirely and present absolutely convincing arguments for the non-existence of a deity, but at the end of the day, you still don’t know. At best you can only really call yourself agnostic, simply because you don’t know what you don’t know!

Having said all that (as I often do, lol) feel free to believe whatever you want, but the moment your beliefs turn to dogma and become “truth” you have slipped over into self delusion, and that’s a topic I’ll leave for another blog!

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Apologetics

In a conversation that came out of my previous blog – Fatal Paradoxes – I casually stated that I knew all the correct theological and doctrinal answers to my own questions: that I had found the paradoxes of faith to be insurmountable and thus fatal. The other person asked if I could provide some examples of these doctrines that I used to be so confident about.

I quickly started looking through old notes and looked up some of the old books etc. What I found was rather scary in some ways!

You see, despite being a deep thinker and questioner all my life, I was also a bit gullible and easily followed those who sounded profound and wise, well at least in the context of christianity.

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My “go to” source for apologetics was C.S.Lewis. He was arguably the greatest apologist for the faith. He came from a rich academic heritage, was extremely well studied in religion and philosophy and very persuasive at presenting what seemed like irrefutable logic.

So as I was digging around to remind myself of all these “theological answers to the paradoxical questions of faith”, looking at Lewis and many other’s works, and thinking “where’s all the good stuff… you know, all the arguments that caused all my doubts to fade?”. I kept looking until I realised I had already found it. There actually wasn’t any profound and persuasive apologetics after all! Even the great Lewis (who I almost worshipped) was simply a product of the culture of his time, lacking in any real diverse understanding or depth from other cultures, and operating in a philosophical environment that reflected the limitations of scientific understanding of the time.

I scratched my head a little more thinking how arrogant I was for coming to that conclusion, and surely the basis for christian faith is more solid than this?!

But I realised that once you’ve “un-seen” the integrity of the faith, you can’t go back. Once the confirmations biases are revealed, the paradigms seen for what they are, the logical fallacies exposed, the role of psychology and science explored, the assumptions about the veracity of the bible and how it all hinged on that, then there really is no going back. The entire foundation of the christian belief system becomes at best, a fascinating adventure in Jewish history, or completely irrelevant, or at worst, an incredibly damaging belief system that was responsible for more hatred and bloodshed than any other. The truth is probably a mix of all these. And yet it persists – and many beautiful, genuine, loving people embrace it and bring life to others in the process.

But for me and countless others, there are far greater truths, and far greater questions that christianity fails miserably to answer, and the apologetics I thought were irrefutable are nothing more than opinions based on assumptions.

What strange and foolish creatures we are!

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