The second thing you need to believe to be a Republican: "Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a 'we can't find Bin Laden' diversion."
Just wondering:
Why, during the winter, do I feel comfortable when the house temperature is 68 degrees? Why, during the summer, do I feel comfortable when the house temperature is 78 degrees?
German professors in a tizzy
The Jerusalem Post reported on Feb. 18, that 25 German professors, for some unknown reason, decided it was the right time to sign a "manifesto" that urges Germany to stop giving Israel "preferential treatment."
What the hell is this about? I'll tell you what I think...keep reading.
Four of these professors came to Israel to debate their claims with "Israeli academics." So why this manifesto and why now?
The professors said that Germany "helped" establish Israel by expelling Jews from Germany during the Third Reich. About 160,000 of the expelled Jews made it to the British mandate of Palestine "and strengthened the Jewish presence here at the expense of the Arab population."
Good grief! But, seriously, that's what they said.
Furthermore, according to the academics, Germany has "paid off" whatever it owed to the Jewish people by all the money it has given to Holocaust survivors and the Israeli government.
Ah, let's see. Is this about money? Nah. Is it about hatred of Jews? Ja! Is it more slimey anti-Semites parading as academics? Ja! Is it scary? Ja! Ja! Ja!
Living and real or Proving the Bible
I don't know from Nathan Sanders, but he wrote a long essay on "Why I Believe" that appeared on the CBN Website.
He believes, it appears, because Biblical "truth" can be proven. He believes "the faith tradition of the Bible is living and real." [Why can't these people talk in language that makes sense?] What does "faith tradition of the Bible" mean? There are several major "faith" traditions that derive from the Bible: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, plus all their various offshoots.
He also says that other supernatural mythologies are not real 'cause they "center on disconnected beings and events that in no way relate to everyday living." But he never specifies either the other supernatural mythologies or the "disconnected beings and events," so we again don't know what he's talking about.
Furthermore, according to Nathan, "The Bible ... in its entire supernatural splendor and history, deals almost exclusively with real people, real kings and real nations that are historically proven to have existed."
There are two problems with that statement. First of all, even if "real people, real kings and real nations" mentioned in the Bible are "historically proven to have existed" it does not follow that what the Bible says about them is true.
Secondly, he fails to mention that there is absolutely no corraborating evidence anywhere for the existence of Abraham or any of the patriarchs, nor is there any evidence the Israelites were in Egypt, nor is there any evidence whatsoever for Moses, or the plagues or the Exodus, or anything else before about the time of King David, c. 1000 BCE. In fact, many biblical scholars today think the great heroes of the Bible are wholly fictitious.
Well, Mr. Sanders continues in this vein, presenting falsehoods and half-truths and his own personal opinions as fact. For example, he thinks because we have thousands of manuscripts of the "Old" and "New" Testaments, that somehow counts for accuracy and truth. We have no manuscripts whatsoever of the Old Testament before the first century, and the earliest of the New Testament manuscripts come in fragmented form over 100 years after the supposed life of Jesus.
There was no New Testament as we know it today for almost 200 years are the death of Jesus! And the validity of the current 27 books of the New Testament was debated up until the bishops voted to accept them in the 4th century and even then there was great disagreement and Christians around the world kept their own gospels, in some cases, for hundreds of years, until the "orthodox" church ultimately forced them to destroy them.
Mr. Sanders also believes that these manuscripts have been copied rigorously and there are no serious issues concerning their reliability or integrity. That is simply not true. In many cases, we do not have a clue as to the original text or the meaning of the text. We do not even know what the text was!
And even if Sanders should be right about this, that still does not make the writing historically correct. He further neglects to mention there were numerous other New Testament writings and gospels that were used and believed to be authoritative for several hundred years. These must, it seems to me, to be taken into account if one is to have a full picture as to how the "early church" understood the Jesus figure.
In summary, we have very little outside evidence for most of the characters and events depicted in the Bible. There is no valid evidence whatsoever that the Jesus figure existed except for the New Testament. And that cannot be used as "proof." One cannot "prove" the Bible. Nor can one say the Bible is true because the Bible says so.
Sanders is stuck. Eventually, he tries to "prove" the Bible from his own personal experience. Good things have happened to him when he's "trusted" something in the Bible. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine if those good things are the result of his biblical fidelity or a happy pill or the pull of the moon.
I think DovBear has a better approach. He rejects all similar arguments to those submitted by Mr. Sanders. But he believes!
He refers to the philosopher, David Hume, who noted that many of our beliefs are irrational. For example, we believe the sun will rise in the east in the morning. But this is irrational. We have no way of knowing the sun will rise. We think it will because we've seen it happen before and we've made an induction but we have no way of proving that induction.
So if our belief in the sun rising is irrational, why do we continue to believe it? Hume says "that when we are exposed to a regular pattern we have no choice but to believe the pattern will continue. It's how we're wired.
This explanation of the belief gives us no reason to think the belief is actually true, but it explains why we can't shake it."
DovBear goes on to say that his belief in the Torah is similar to the above "in that I can't escape it. My upbringing and education have conspired to produce a human being who believes that a nation of people -- my ancestors -- saw the great fire and heard the admonishing from from Sinai. It's how I am wired.
"There are no grounds for my belief in the revelation: No evidence or argument exists to support it. In fact, I have no ration reason whatsoever to think that this belief is true; nonetheless I can't free myself of it. "Nor do I want to."
Personally, this kind of irrational acceptance of religious faith seems like a bitter fruit. But it is one hell of a lot more honest that people like Nathan Sanders who twist facts and history to justify their need for certainty.
I think it's much more honest to say, "I believe and have no other choice than to believe, even if there is no good reason for my belief," than to claim "I believe because I can prove that the Bible is true."
That explains, perhaps, why so many fundamentalist Christians and Jews are so hyper about their faith. If any part of the Bible can be disproved, their faith is disproved, too.
Who can be saved?
There's a prior question: What does "saved" mean?
Avery Cardinal Dulles wrote an article titled "Who Can Be Saved?" for the February issue of First Things. It begins like this: "Nothing is more striking in the New Testament than the confidence with which it proclaims the saving power of belief in Christ."
Cardinal Dulles then quotes a number of New Testament passages to back up that statement. He also answers (sort of) the prior question above: It is "in Jesus" that we encounter "the Lord of Life" and he brings us "into the way that leads to everlasting blessedness." Saved evidently means "everlasting blessedness."
The cardinal also mentions that "Paul is the outstanding herald of salvation through faith." That's important because the cardinal here buttresses my contention that Jesus said nothing about salvation coming through "faith" in him. That's Paul's message and the Christian church is derivative, not from the Jesus of the Gospels, but from Paul, the creator of a new faith.
Dulles then arrives at the main question as to who can be saved. His answer is fascinating because it seems to directly contradict Vatican pronouncements. We have seen just recently the Vatican and the Pope clearly say that the Jews can be saved only by coming to faith in Christ through the RC Church.
Dulles says something else. Catholics are saved "if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments. Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found." Jews, ah, they can be saved too. They just have to look "forward in hope to the Messiah and try to ascertain whether God's promise has been fulfilled." Even all the other pagans can be saved. Atheists can be saved "if they worship God under some other name and place their lives at the service of truth and justice."
I don't get it. On the one hand the cardinal quotes Paul who insists "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
On the other hand, everyone can be saved if they somehow end up worshipping God in some form, which could include the seeking of justice and truth.
No wonder Catholics are always so confused. And why bother with the Church at all?
2 comments:
I wonder how the German professors would react if they learned that three out of every five people with any German blood anywhere in Europe had been rounded up and shipped to some place in Europe and starved, beaten or gassed to death by their neighbors, church officials, policemen and governmental agencies. The remnant then would be put in Displaced persons camps and held there because no country outside Europe would accept them. That remnant would eventually wind up somewhere where Germans would be accepted as people. That country would have to absorb all the Germans expelled from their native lands and not welcome anywhere either. The remnants would eventually accept reparations for the treasures, homes, slave labor etc that could not be paid to the 66% that had been murdered, so it was to be paid as reimbursement for the “inconvenience and losses” to the 34% of the survivors. In the meantime the UN and many nations would refuse to accept their new country as legitimate and their chosen capital would not be accepted either because others wanted them gone from the earth. After half a century or more, they would still be confined to only a few places on earth that accepts Germans as human or cannot find a way to get rid of them.
Let’s start substituting the word “Jew” for some other ethnic or religious bloc of people and see what happens to the logic used to keep describing Israel or Jews. If you think this fanciful, try finding out what is happening to Christians in the Muslim world or the people of Darfur or another tribal groups throughout Africa. The Jews are really not so different than any other group suffering genocidal impulses around the world. Try substituting your own religious or ethnic name and see if you see it differently.
Bob Poris
I wonder how the German professors would react if they learned that three out of every five people with any German blood anywhere in Europe had been rounded up and shipped to some place in Europe and starved, beaten or gassed to death by their neighbors, church officials, policemen and governmental agencies. The remnant then would be put in Displaced persons camps and held there because no country outside Europe would accept them. That remnant would eventually wind up somewhere where Germans would be accepted as people. That country would have to absorb all the Germans expelled from their native lands and not welcome anywhere either. The remnants would eventually accept reparations for the treasures, homes, slave labor etc that could not be paid to the 66% that had been murdered, so it was to be paid as reimbursement for the “inconvenience and losses” to the 34% of the survivors. In the meantime the UN and many nations would refuse to accept their new country as legitimate and their chosen capital would not be accepted either because others wanted them gone from the earth. After half a century or more, they would still be confined to only a few places on earth that accepts Germans as human or cannot find a way to get rid of them.
Let’s start substituting the word “Jew” for some other ethnic or religious bloc of people and see what happens to the logic used to keep describing Israel or Jews. If you think this fanciful, try finding out what is happening to Christians in the Muslim world or the people of Darfur or another tribal groups throughout Africa. The Jews are really not so different than any other group suffering genocidal impulses around the world. Try substituting your own religious or ethnic name and see if you see it differently.
Bob Poris
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