Tag: Christianity

Or the Western European culture it inspired in light of the options:

The practice of human sacrifice is on the rise in Uganda, as measured by ritual killings where body parts, often facial features or genitals, are cut off for use in ceremonies. The number of people killed in ritual murders last year rose to a new high of at least 15 children and 14 adults, up from just three cases in 2007, according to police. The informal count is much higher — 154 suspects were arrested last year and 50 taken to court over ritual killings.

Children in particular are common victims, according to a U.S. State Department report released this month. The U.S. spent $500,000 to train 2,000 Ugandan police last year to investigate offences related to human trafficking, including ritual killings.

The problem is bad enough that last year the police established an Anti-Human Sacrifice Taskforce. Posters on police station walls show a sinister stranger luring two young girls into a car below bold letters that call on parents to “Prevent Child Sacrifice.”

The thing that struck me as most interesting about this is the fact that it comes so soon after the Western media was up in arms about Uganda’s anti-homosexual laws. Journalists are clearly more concerned about potential death sentences being meted out for criminal acts of homosexuality than they are about actual child murders being committed by witch doctors.

Now, some irreligious will quite reasonably declare a pox on both the Christian and pagan houses; the only form of child sacrifice practiced by secularists is abortion and the occasional collateral damage from mass vaccination. The problem with that perspective is that no matter what the 1950s science fiction authors believed, it is very clear godless secularism has about the same chance to be the cultural heir to Christianity that we had to be flying cars and living in undersea cities before the end of the 20th century.

As Chesterton, history, and demographics have all pointed out, when Christianity fails in a society, it is not going to be replaced by a lack of religion, but by a different religion. The more intelligent members of the irreligientsia would do well to ponder whether continuting to work towards that replacement is a wise policy or not.

It is also worth keeping in mind that Christians who are accustomed to fighting this sort of raw and undisguised evil are not likely to be as tolerant of open violations of Biblical morality as the average Western Christian.

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.

And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.

I am often bemused by those who appeal to the so-called “problem of evil” in questioning the existence of God. While there are, I think, a number of perfectly rational reasons for intelligent individuals to doubt the existence of the supernatural or a Creator God, the problem of evil is most definitely not one of them. Indeed, an appeal to it is nothing more than a demonstration of complete theological ignorance.

Without evil, Man is not fallen. Without evil, there is no bondage to sin. Without evil, there is no reason for Jesus Christ to sacrifice himself for us. Without evil, there is no purpose to the Crucifixion, no significance to the Resurrection, and no need for our salvation. Without evil, there is no basis for the very foundation of the Christian faith.

It is because there is evil in the world that Man has need of Jesus Christ. It is because Man is by nature slave to sin that we have need of the one who can set us free. And it is because we owed a debt that was beyond our capacity to pay that Christians are grateful for the epic sacrifice that we commemorate today.

And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, Save thyself, and come down from the cross.

Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save. Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him. And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias. And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down.

And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.

DF requests clarification:

I have a question for you. In your Literal or non-literal post, you stated, “I do not believe that the human mind is capable of properly comprehending either the Word of God or the Will of God.” God’s thoughts are above our thoughts, that is clear. However, do you really believe that a God who a) created humans, b) became a human, and c) openly desires communion with humans lacks the capacity or willingness to communicate with humans on a level that we can “properly comprehend”? If so, which is it: incapacity or unwillingness?

First, I must note that DF’s three points are not quite correct. The Father created Man, but He never became a man. That is, of course, a minor correction and not pertinent to the question at hand. I believe that the answer has to be unwillingness, since the design of Man is such that Man lacks the capacity to fully comprehend God’s Will or His reason. And Man clearly lacked this capacity from the start, as evidenced by Adam’s failure to grasp the difference between Good and Evil.

So, while it is God’s intention that we understand and obey Him to the best of our limited capacity to do so, it is clearly not His intention that we fully comprehend either His purposes or His reason. The thoughtful reader will note that this also explains the common atheist complaint that God does not make it easy for them to see or believe in Him. There is no Scriptural indication that making things easy for us to comprehend has ever been any part of His intentions, and indeed, there is a great deal of evidence indicating the precise opposite.

JF wonders how to handle the historical angle:

I am a new reader to your blog (better late than never!) and I must say I am very impressed. I have your book “The Irrational Atheist” on my wishlist and am looking forward to reading it when the time comes. Quick summary of my worldview: Baptized as a Catholic, bordered on Deism/Agnosticism in my teens/young adulthood and then re-embraced Christianity after reading “Mere Christianity” by C.S Lewis, combined with a personal spiritual experience. I have now decided to return to the ranks of the RCC as I now approach my 30’s. After finding out the horrific crimes of State Atheism in the 20th century, and realizing the absolute bankruptcy of metaphysical naturalism in regards to objective morality and purpose, I lose no opportunity to challenge the few atheists I know and take them to task on their often narrow views. I have been successful when it comes to monotheism vs atheism. No problems there. The one chink in my armour, so to speak, is when discussing Christianity, and that is why I have come to you. While I am a mere amateur at this, you have ten times the intellect that I do and have sent the mightiest New Atheist arguments packing with the tail between their legs. So here is my problem and question for you and the purpose of this email:

How do/can I argue that Jesus Christ is the Son of God/Divine when the historicity, authorship and authenticity of the Gospels are often challenged or even dismissed by some scholars? Another example of this challenge is that many atheists (or non denominational monotheists, like my fiancee) champion the supposed fact that none of the Gospels are actual eyewitness accounts, but second or third-hand re-tellings of past events, often with gross embellishment and fabrication? Many scholars share this opinion and I find it difficult to refute. If one takes the Gospels (especially that of John) as an actual eye witness testimony of Jesus, then of course (thanks to the Lewis Trilema) one is almost forced to admit him to be the Son of God. But if someone does not consider the Gospels historically accurate, I have no way of arguing that Jesus was who he said he was.

First of all, you must recognize that they have just handed you a gigantic sledgehammer with which to smash their feigned rationale for their lack of faith. It is only the historically illiterate and the willfully dishonest who consider the Gospels to be historically inaccurate. There are three things to keep in mind. 1) If it were not for the supernatural claims, not a single historian would cast any aspersions on either the Old or New Testament. 2) As an archeological guide, the Bible has repeatedly proven to be far more accurate than the current state of archeological science. There are a host of examples where scientists thought to have disproved the Biblical history, such as the nonexistent “Assyrian” and “Hittite” empires, only to learn to their chagrin that they were incorrect and the Bible was supported by the archeological evidence. The relatively recent discovery of a Bronze Age kingdom in Israel which corresponds with the Davidic kingdom is another, more recent example of this phenomenon. 3) Rejecting the Bible as a historically reliable document on any of the grounds usually cited requires rejecting most of history’s most famous figures, including Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.

For example, the primary source on Alexander the Great, Arrian, was writing as a second-hand source more than 400 years after Alexander. All four Gospels, on the other hand, were clearly written within 70 years of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. “The Gospels are dated traditionally as follows: Mark is believed to be the first gospel written around A.D. 60. Matthew and Luke follow and are written between A.D. 60-70; John is the final gospel, written between A.D. 90-100.” And Paul’s letters were written between 48 AD and 60 AD.

The best way of defeating these silly arguments is through brutal mockery. For example, you can ask them if they are asserting that it was the Persian Empire that occupied Judea and not the Roman Empire as the Bible has it. Or you can ask them if it was Julius Caesar who ordered the famous census that led to Mary and Joseph being at Bethlehem, not Octavian. You will be surprised at how most atheists with whom you speak will stick their heads directly into the easiest of historical traps. Once they have done so, you can point out that they have absolutely no grounds for holding an opinion on the historical reliability of the Bible.

At church last Sunday, the band played a familiar worship song that was occasionally sung at both another church we have attended as well as at the evangelical churches we attended in the States. What I found interesting, however, was that the English words were translated somewhat differently into Italian.

Church 1: Potrei cantar del Tuo amor per sempre

Church 2: Cantero’ sempre del Tuo amore

The translations are similar, but not identical. The first one is more literal and takes some mild liberties with the words in order to maintain the meter. The second slightly modifies the meaning in order to better accommodate the grammatical structure of the language.

Church 1: I could sing of your love forever.

Church 2: I will always sing of your love.

In like manner, every Bible translation features many such minor variations that depart from every other translation. For the most part, these variations are extremely trivial, although a few of them have led to some serious problems of interpretation, such as the English translations from Hebrew “ratsach” to “kill” rather than the more accurate “murder” and “‘ôp” to “bat” rather than “flying creature”.

This is why I think it is such a massive mistake for Christians to make a fetish of Biblical perfection. While I believe the Bible is the Word of God and is to be applied in the most literal manner possible, I do not believe that the human mind is capable of properly comprehending either the Word of God or the Will of God. There is, I submit, considerably Biblical evidence to support this contention, especially in the words of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul. Now, this does not mean that one can pick and choose whatever sections of the Bible one happens to think makes the most sense at any given moment, but it means that there is no need to concoct elaborate structures of illogic in order to paper over what appear to be minor contradictions or to insist that the entire verity of the Bible stands or falls on the perfection of every translator working in every language.

The Bible itself is abundantly clear that to fetishize Scripture is a massive mistake. No one knew the Law better than the Pharisees, after all. One of Jesus Christ’s primary occupations was to point out, again and again, that it is the underlying message and the spirit of the texts that matter most, not the literal letter of them. And that is why I contend it is both counterproductive and downright Pharisaical to claim that one’s faith in Jesus Christ and ultimate salvation has connection whatsoever with one’s literal belief in the accuracy in a passage from Genesis, Nehemiah, or 2nd Peter.

I simply don’t believe that God cares at all if we believe that He created rabbits in a single 24-hour day or that they evolved from some proto-rabbits in the post-Cambrian. After all, He knows what happened so all of our various speculations can only amuse Him. I suspect our varying opinions on that and many other supposedly important matters are about as important to Him as our opinions on the passage of Obamacare and whether Brett Favre is going to play football in the 2010 season or not. God cares about our love for Him, our obedience to His Laws, and our willingness to place our faith in His Son and bend our knees before Him.

I don’t think it’s any secret that I am contemptuous of Christopher Hitchens’s intellect as well as his capacity for constructing a rational argument about religion. And yet…

Maryiln Sewell: “The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?”

Christopher Hitchens: “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

So, what does it say about liberal Christianity that its representatives don’t even rise to the intellectual and theological level of the New Atheists?

In which a skeptic’s email is quoted:

I’ve written you before as a skeptic. Remember the topic about Sam Harris? I was a college student who lost his faith after reading Harris and reading atheist blogs. Actually, I had been skeptical for some time before that, as some of you pointed out. I have now graduated with a Master’s…. Anyway, last November I found Christ. Before I was probably merely a nominal Christian. I thought I had to believe, not that I wanted to, to get into Heaven. But that’s all over. I had a personal experience after reading Darin Hufford’s book The Misunderstood God. I followed his instructions, and I felt Christ enter my life. My relationship with Christ has since deepened.

It should come as no surprise that the spurious reasoning offered by the New Atheists holds an amount of appeal to nominal Christians who have been taught to hide from their doubts rather than to embrace and examine them. Those who are not taught to think critically about the Christian faith, but are merely raised in it, are always going to be susceptible to the sophistry and faux rationality of the Sam Harrises of the world. A license to do evil without ramifications or remorse is always going to be tempting no matter how shallow the justifications for it happen to be. And Heaven is a very long way off in the eyes of the young, especially when more immediate earthly paradises are there for the taking.

Anyhow, I’m pleased to hear that another wayward sheep has elected to return to the Good Shepherd. No doubt his faith will be all the stronger for experience of indulging his doubts. Believing in belief is no substitute for actually possessing it.

Markku is under the impression that he managed to catch me making a mistake about God’s knowledge of the design imperfections of His Creation. I think I can demonstrate that this is not correct:

“I think Jesus was the fix for a design gone haywire.”

Can’t be.

1Pe 1:19-20 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

Now, Markku is correct to the extent that the verses make it clear that Jesus cannot have been a fix conceived subsequent to the problem. However, I think Markku is making a mistake in equating Jesus Christ’s existence and potential mission with the actual sacrifice of his life here. Since we already knew that the Word was with God from the start, his existence before the foundation of the world isn’t in question from a Biblical perspective. However, we can also see that the foreordaining does not refer to his “precious blood”, although I agree that the reference is still in the context of him redeeming Man. This distinction between the potential redemption and fact of the redeeming sacrifice is perhaps more apparent in other translations.

NIV: For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

Now, Markku’s interpretation is potentially correct, as it indicates that God was aware from before the beginning of the possible need to send Jesus Christ to redeem Man. The Redeemer was chosen from the start, but not revealed until later. But this does not make his interpretation necessarily correct because it is perfectly plausible that God would have understood that Man was capable of falling and had a backup plan prepared in case of such an event.

As a programmer – a very good programmer, as a matter of fact – Markku is well-equipped to understand the concept of an if/then structure created during the design phase. So, while these verses from 1st Peter certainly permit his interpretation of a scripted scenario of Fall and Redemption, they fall short of conclusively proving it. This means that my interpretation of an unscripted scenario remains Biblically tenable and it is possible that Jesus was the predetermined fix for a design with multiple potential outcomes.