Here’s an interesting commentary I discovered while reading Zero Boss’s blog. Below is an excerpt. I hope you’ll read the rest, religious or not, because it is well-written and one can’t claim bias viewpoint since it’s written by Christians.
While the current state of Christianity might seem normal and business-as-usual to some, most see through the judgment and hypocrisy that has permeated the church for so long. People witness this and say to themselves, “Why would I want to be a part of that?” They are turned off by Christians and eventually, to Christianity altogether.
. . .So when did the focus of Christianity shift from the unconditional love and acceptance preached by Christ to the hate and condemnation spewed forth by certain groups today?
Source: CNN
I found this particularly interesting because a few months back, my dad and I had a conversation about Christianity on the phone one night.
His stance is: If it’s in the Bible, it’s the word of God and it should be valued as such, and not out of context.
My stance is I believe the Bible is the word of God, to an extent. I think the values and morals of things such as “Love thy neighbor”, “Love the sinner, hate the sin” and so forth are divinly inspired. However, the notion of Jesus used parables to preach to the masses is widely accepted, but my theory that entire stories/events in the bible are also parables is borderline blasphemy.
Jesus’ disciples even asked him in Matthew 13:10, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
Example, In the book of Matthew, in chapter 13, Jesus preaches the “The Parable of the Sower” where he uses the analogy of a farmer trying to grow crops on different types of soil and how that relates to what happens when the teachings of God are heard by those whose hearts are not yet ready to accept it. This example was something most people, especially in that day and age, could relate to and understand. Jesus says himself he wasn’t speaking literally of a farmer, it was an example.
My thinking, is if the Son of God himself spoke, preached and taught using parables, why is it so far-fetched for God the Father to speak to his followers who wrote the first pages of the bible (in the Old Testament days before the birth of Christ) in parables?
Here’s an example: Perhaps the creation that happened in Genesis never happened as it is written. Let’s say evolution actually happened. The physiological, biological and chemical sciences hadn’t yet been discovered so if God had told Adam that he was the result of millions of years of slow, biological evolution, he would have been eternally confused at the concept of “millions”. Let alone “years” or “evolution”. So, it would have been easier to tell those long-ago peoples “So God created man in his image…” (Genesis 1:27).
Science has taught us, now, that rainbows are caused when water and sunlight mix. But those early people were told that God created the rainbow as a symbol to the whole world that, after Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood, God promised to never again destroy the world with a flood. My dad explained this to me, when I was young, as “God created the science for the rainbow to exist”.
I’m rambling here, and I’ve honestly forgotten what my original intent was for this post. Perhaps this is something that cannot be finished in a single post. These are ideas that have been rolling around in my head for some time now.
Any thoughts? You know the drill!
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7 comments ↓
I’m not sure if you read angels and demons yet, but the book has some interesting concepts about God and science. One of my favorite is how everything is connected almost in a single conciousness when it comes to living things, that on itself can be considered God.
Don’t drink and post, Dan.
There are numerous glaring holes in the “bible as 100% literal truth” theory that many fundamentalist Christians espouse. Open up your Bible to Genesis 1 (verses 11 - 27) and tell me in which order the following were created: man, plants, and animals. Now open your Bible to Genesis 2 (verses 4 - 7) and tell me in which order man, plants, and animals were created. zOMFGWTFBBQ? Divide by zero!
It seems to me that the most important truths contained in that text aren’t the particulars of how many of each kind of animal Noah brought onto his arc or precisely when Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar started the Christmas-present-giving tradition.
My intent with the Nativity post, wasn’t to confuse people about my stance on Christianity. It was sort of a public FYI for people who set up Nativity scenes during the Christmas season. The three Magi visiting a baby isn’t something I feel is that far-fetched to have actually happened.
@ Burrowowl:
In response to your claims of inconsitency: Genesis 1:11-27 talks about the order in which God created things, as you said.
However, in Genesis 2:4-7, and I tried carefully to read that text without inferring anything, but it doesn’t seem to me that it’s claiming that’s the order in which God created things. Instead, it’s saying that things weren’t present until God said so.
I don’t know if I’m reading all this correctly, but being a Biologist I’ve had to deal with my own demons about the Bible and its meaning. I was born and raised Catholic, but I never thought the Bible had it all, then I learnt about Evolution. Maybe I’m crazy, but I’ve managed to make my own conciliation between creationism and what Charles Darwin proposed. But to write about it would take too long!
If you happen to get your hands on a Time magazine copy of November 13th, 2006, where there is this absolutely interesting discussion between Richard Dawkins (an atheist biologist) and Francis Collins (a Christian geneticist), I recommend it. It’s called “God vs. Science.” — Worth reading for curious people.
Dan, I’m not going to bring up any biblical inconsistencies as I’m sure that better theologians than you and I have long ago come up with arguments to reconcile them, but I think that the different interpretations that you and Burrowowl have for that passage in Genesis makes a good point.
The Bible is sufficiently large, complex, and literary that it allows many many interpretations (some probably less valid than others). In this case, it’s pretty easy to come up with a reason why those two passages in Genesis don’t really conflict directly, if you are coming from the position that the bible is generally true (if possibly allegorical). Similarly, it is easy to see the disparity as evidence that the bible is internally inconsistent, if you are coming from the position that the bible is the historical writings and myths of some ancient peoples.
My point in all this is that if two well-meaning intelligent people can’t agree on the meaning of a few lines about the creation of man, etc., what chance do we have of agreeing on the meaning of the bible as a whole. Even starting from the position that the bible is the absolute word-for-word truth, we have the problem that relatively few of us speak or read ancient Greek or Hebrew, so at best, we’re reasoning through the meaning of words that have been translated dozens or hundreds of times, in slightly different ways, by many different scholars, each with their own interpretation and each leaving the mark of their beliefs on the passages we read.
So, in my opinion, it is silly and ignorant to claim that one’s beliefs are the only valid interpretation, especially if that claim is based on some kind of textual absolutism, since all interpretations require digesting the whole and determining which of the many many stories and lessons and statements is important and central.
Ugh. “better theologians than you and me…”
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