This accurate depiction of theology comes from reader Pliny the In Between, who posts his artwork at Evolving Perspectives. I dedicate it to David Bentley Hart, who espouses an apophatic God but appears to worship a bearded one, or at least one who appeared on earth as Jesus:
Reminds me of my favorite way of describing sophisticated theology: “If something’s not worth doing, it’s not worth doing well.”
I’m a theologian for better or worse, but I think good shorthand for Hart’s Ground of Being God is GOB…. Damned if I know how GOB grew a beard.
You jest (I think).
But taking a more serious view of your question, the “beard” is itself shorthand for anthropomorphism. Even GOBs have beards, ie, are anthropomorphic if their proponents mean anything more by the term than the brute natural and physical context(s) that makes existence possible.
As soon as this GOB does anything or wants anything, boom: beard. Anthropomorphic doesn’t just mean “looks like a human”.
I hope Sastra will see this thread.
Sorry, my theology might be lacking, but what is a “GOB?”
ground of being, whatever that really means.
I believe it’s perfectly congruous with the rock from which Plato’s Cave is formed.
b&
“Ground of Being.” The term is a deepity which flip-flops from being another word for existence to the interjection of mental attributes into existence. If God is the Ground-of-Being then it’s just crazy to analyze how it might not exist.
The sophisticated use it to show how very basic and foundational God is, which means it can’t be a hypothesis.
I wonder if there is place for GON = Ground-of-NonBeing/Nothingness ?
Is this GON more absurd than GOB?
Moreover,
Is GOB=GOE (Ground-of-Everything)?
GOB=GOE=GOG (Ground-of-God)?
😀
Don’t forget Ground-of-ME (which is probably the real ground of the concept anyway.)
There are Eastern religions which idealize their version of God as being something very much like a Ground-of-Nonbeing. This is useful when someone brings up the apologetic that “God is the Greatest Being Conceivable.” Conceivable by whom? So which one is “greater?” Looks like we’re dealing with dueling intuitions here.
That is the bait and switch alright. The GOB only sticks around long enough to defend against the challengers, then the anthropomorphic god steps in to love, be worshipped, and be very concerned about what you do with your genitals.
Yes, but I think it’s even trickier than that. Plenty of Sophisticated Believers never get to a God which demands worship and is very concerned about our genitals. They stick with a God which is all airy-fairy Being/Consciousness/Bliss bafflegab … and don’t notice that this additional Pure Mentality is different than a trivial claim that existence or reality is the metaphysical ground zero.
What if there IS a ground of being — but it ISN’T God?
Because this question makes sense — meaning it’s coherent and conceivable — I think the annoying insistence that GOB-GOD isn’t “anthropomorphic” is refuted.
Heh — I like your take on the beard as shorthand for anthropomorphism. So God needs two labels: Magic Sky Guy vs. “Magic Sky Guy.”
The second one is NOTHING like the first. Silly atheist.
Scare quotes are an important tool in the theologian’s kit.
Another anti-intellectual trick they’ve learned from pomos.
Wonderfully apt.
Ah, yes — but the sophisticated Jesus isn’t anthropomorphic! Even though he really was born of a virgin, walked on water, zombificated himself and others, and all the rest…because profound humbling mystery!
b&
Sophisticated Jesus…that may be the name of my next band.
You owe me tickets to your first concert….
b&
Oh, it’ll be free. We won’t be very good.
Well…then you owe me tickets to your first paid gig, then!
b&
The arrow for sophisticated theology shouldn’t end up pointing at the Magic Sky Guy but just become less and less visible as it fades into nothing.
..and the magic sky guy should be more appropriately placed at it’s obvious point of origin, i.e. just below the butt of stick-man
Putting the “fundament” in “fundamentalism,” eh?
b&
A great redefinition of “Fundamentalist”
Best picture ever.
Totally captures it.
Could be improved, though, by having a picture of Hough brewing tea in there somewhere.
My take: The craft of the theologian is to spin horseshit into gold
That’s called alchemy.
They’re similar in that they are both based on wishful thinking.
At least with a nuclear reactor one can in principle do that. With theology, there’s no referent to transmute for its own sake or make into something useful.
I have to disagree. The craft of the theologian is to spin horseshit into chicken shit.
You’re both worng.
The craft of the theologian is to spin bullshit into book sales and asses in pews. Theologians are a minor but essential branch of the religious marketing department.
b&
And the creationist, who spins gold into horseshit.
That sums it up nicely indeed!
Does anyone know why Frank Zappa’s in that picture?
One for Pliny.
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My thoughts exactly. He was no theologian. Although he wrote a song about religion, titled “Dumb all over”.
And about the “fall of man” he said: “The subtle message? ‘Get smart and I’ll f**k you all over, sayeth the Lord.'” That’s the reason fundamentalists take the straight path and – if necessary – drag others out of schools if forbidden fruit is served there (evolution, ethics, how to use brain, &c).
On the “fall of man” — there was actually a plan from the very beginning according to Scripture. With the gift of free will, man could either choose God’s way or not. If the latter happens, God has planned from the very beginning to send His son as a redeeming sacrifice. The cost of redemption was very high.
I think it’s not fair to say that Christian fundamentalists stay away from using their brains. I’m a former atheist myself, and I’ve been a believer for 12 years now. I could say that my faith has developed by using the totality of gifts that God has given me, intellect included.
As per the rules of this site, I’m permitted to ask you this question as a first-time religious poster.
1. Given that you say that fundamentalists use their brains, why on earth do they reject all the mountains of scientific evidence for evolution and against the Genesis story. Is THAT using their brain.
2. What is the evidence that has convinced you that there is a God, and made you abandon your atheism. Why do you think God gave you your intellect rather than it simply evolved?
3. What makes you so sure that Christianity is the RIGHT religion rather than, say, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or Mormonism?
You won’t be allowed to post further until you answer these questions, to which the other commenters can respond.
“1. Given that you say that fundamentalists use their brains, why on earth do they reject all the mountains of scientific evidence for evolution and against the Genesis story. Is THAT using their brain.
2. What is the evidence that has convinced you that there is a God, and made you abandon your atheism. Why do you think God gave you your intellect rather than it simply evolved?”
I can’t speak for fellow believers. Personally, I actually respect the amount of scientific work being done on evolution. I don’t believe it negates my faith in God at all. In fact, I encourage my child, a top honors student in a top public high school in the Chicago suburbs, to understand the science behind the current theory of evolution. I do caution that science doesn’t answer everything. After all, science has its limitations. I believe we all can agree on that.
For your questions 1 and 2, I find the evidence for JESUS difficult NOT to believe. There are multiple aspects to it, including my own personal experiences. Former atheist Lee Strobel’s book on THE CASE FOR CHRIST is a good read. So is former atheist’s C.S. Lewis thought on his book MERE CHRISTIANITY.
“3. What makes you so sure that Christianity is the RIGHT religion rather than, say, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or Mormonism?”
One interesting thing about most other religions is man’s yearning to become god or godlike. It’s based on works, trying to achieve perfection by the basis of doing the right things. Not so with Christianity. It’s God reaching out to men. And, for me, it makes perfect sense if one takes into account the different attributes of God, and how God views me as His creation.
What makes me 100% sure? The truth in God’s Word, the evidence in my life, and the evidence in other people’s live.
I’m sorry, but I’m afraid Mr. Strobel has sold you a bill of goods.
There is an exceedingly thorough contemporary and near-contemporary documentary record of Judaea in the first half of the first century, and Jesus is perfectly absent from it.
Most glaring is his absence from the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are the original pieces of papyrus and parchment penned by messianic millennialist Jews in and around Jerusalem before, during, and after all possible dates for Jesus’s ministry. Included are the prophecies in Isaiah that Christians claim foretold Jesus’s coming, but no mention of those prophecies being fulfilled at the time they were written. They include beatitudes, but not those Beatitudes. They contain all manner of commentary on other contemporary events and issues that Jesus himself was described as being interested in, but we find not even a passing footnote of a mention of his words on the matter. The authors of the Scrolls literally had no clue that Jesus existed and didn’t notice even the slightest hint of any of the fantastic public spectacles that followed Jesus wherever he went.
Also inexcusable is Philo’s failure to mention Jesus. Philo was the Jewish philosopher who was first to incorporate the Pagan Logos, the Word of John 1:1, into Judaism. He is, quite literally and with no exaggeration, the original author of Christian philosophy. He was related by marriage to the King Herod Agrippa the Gospels say reigned at the time of Jesus’s ministry, and he would have been about the same age as Joseph. He was an active diplomat even after the end of Pilate’s time in office, and personally petitioned Caligula about the unjust executions of Jews by Romans. And he was a prolific author and chronicler. It is literally impossible for him to have failed to notice the personal embodiment of his own philosophical invention publicly performing miracles around Jerusalem, let alone for him to have not mentioned the trial, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. It’d be like Bobby Kennedy failing to mention the flying saucer that landed on the Mall during his brother’s second inauguration.
There are a great many more contemporary sources; too many to list exhaustively. Among the other more notable examples are the several Satirists whose stock in trade was the exact sort of scandal the Gospels describe of the trial and Pilate’s behavior, and Pliny the Elder who was obsessed with all things supernatural.
Again, not a single contemporary or near-contemporary writer said “boo” about Jesus or the events of the Gospels.
When the first Christian apologists started defending their faith to the Pagans — a period that overlaps with the authorship of the Gospels — their first line of defense was that the Pagans shouldn’t ridicule the Christians because Christian claims about Jesus were no different from Pagan claims about Pagan gods. Justin Martyr, in particular, was obsessed with the “Sons of Jupiter,” as he called them in his First Apology (q.v.). He compiled exhaustive lists of the demigods Jesus was modeled after: Perseus was born of a virgin; Mercury was the Word (John 1:1, again) incarnate; Bellerophon Ascended; Bacchus turned water into wine; Mithra’s Eucharist used bread and water; and so on. Indeed, after you tally up all the Pagan precedents, not one element of Jesus’s life of any substance remains. To be fair, Martyr’s thesis was that evil daemons with the power of foresight copied Jesus centuries in advance so they might lead honest men astray — and that remains the official Church “explanation” for the matter — but I think sane people in the modern world will see through that for the primitive superstitious paranoia it so clearly is.
And, in a similar vein, the earliest surviving Pagan mentions of Christianity all come from a century or more late by people not even born until long after…and they universally dismiss the Christians as the exact same type of lunatic cultists as we today view the Raelians or the Branch Davidians. Lucian even wrote a delightful short satire about Peregrinus, a lovable rascal who duped the Christians into taking him for one of his own and who repaid them by divinely revealing to them all sorts of Pagan superstitions as Christian dogma. Whether the work of Peregrinus or not, you can see an example of that in action when Paul instructs the Corinthians in how to perform the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11 — a ritual we know for a fact was at the heart of the Mithraic Eucharist, and the cult of Mithras had its home base in Tarsus (as in “Saul, of”).
Put it all together with the Gospels and their breathtakingly fanciful stories of zombies and demons and sorcery and all the rest, and only one conclusion can possibly make sense:
Christianity is no more nor less than yet another syncretic Pagan death / resurrection mystery cult, every bit as much an human fabrication as all the other such cults of its time (and before and since).
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news…but the sad fact of the matter is that you’ve been had.
Cheers,
b&
I’m going to force myself to respond only to what you’ve written; for the record, I’m an ex-evangelical missionary, now an atheist.
1) I don’t think you understand evolution, if you think that a loving god had a role to play in it. First of all, evolution (both chemical and biological) leaves nothing for a god to do. Sure, you can *say* he guided the process, but Occam’s razor puts paid to that idea. Second, evolution is an impossibly wasteful, horribly cruel system, pretty much the opposite of what we read in the Genesis myth, or of the supposed character of the biblical god (though he can be mighty cruel at times himself). I recently came across this brief characterization of evolution: “The tyranny of that which is able to make more of itself”. The wasteful part of evolution is obvious; if you don’t think evolution is cruel, then you’re spending too much time looking at peacock tails and baby leopards, and ignoring the whole predator-prey relationship, things like sperm competition, and the unfortunately little-publicized fact that about half of all species are parasitic. If “growth for the sake of growth” is the ideology of the cancer cell, then “reproduction for the sake of reproduction” is the ideology of evolution. So much for airy-fairy theology!
2) “Science has its limitations” is just the god of the gaps fallacy. Let me give you a better way to look at it, courtesy of James Morrow: “Science does have all the answers. The problem is that we don’t have all the science.”
3) Ben has already dismantled the “how could you not believe the evidence for Jesus” argument.
4) Your religious mewling and special pleading, both about the “cost of redemption is very high” and “my religion is god reaching out to men” is, well, I guess I already said mewling and special pleading. I assure you that the jews and muslims say the same about their religions; in any case, your claims need evidence. Remember that there is *no* evidence at all for some of the main claims of christianity, such as the existence of god, heaven and hell, and *disconfirmatory* evidence for other of its claims, such as the Adam and Eve and flood myths. In fact, roughly the first half of the bible is mere theology; if I’m not mistaken, the first character mentioned for whom we have independent evidence of historical existence is Jehu, who was king in roughly 840 BCE.
5) “The truth in god’s word”?? Who said it’s god’s word? The book itself. Now, please give me an argument, *not* involving special pleading, that *your* magic book is the true magic book, but the muslims’ magic book, which makes *exactly* the same claim to be god’s word, is only a fake magic book. I’ll wait; please note that if you try the “Jesus was resurrected” ploy, that I’ll ask for evidence (both of his resurrection, and that of the other zombies mentioned in Matthew 27.51-53). If you read in say, the Greek myths, stories about talking snakes and donkeys, witches, big fish taxis, zombies, towers reaching up to heaven, etc., you’d have no difficulty recognizing that the myths were just that–myths–pre-scientific people trying to make sense of the world around them without having access to the intellectual tools that would enable them to do so with any accuracy. Why are you unable to do that with the bible? Because you’ve been taught that it’s “god’s word”. It’s not.
6) If the evidence in your life is proof that your god exists and is the true god, does the evidence in a jew’s, muslim’s, or mormon’s life mean that their god exists and is the true god? Again, you’re committing the special pleading fallacy, along with the “my experience is normative for all humanity at all times” well, I won’t dignify that by calling it a fallacy. Ditto for the “evidence in other people’s lives”.
*After all, science has its limitations. I believe we all can agree on that.*
I believe you are wrong.
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Crap. I spent a long time on my post, and I know Ben did as well. I was hoping for some response, but nothing. I take it this was just a drive-by religioning?
Don’t sweat it. Remember: the audience frequently isn’t the person being addressed….
b&
@Ben Goren – It seems there are evidence for and against Christ, but you chose to mention only the evidence which seem to fit your belief.
On the Dead Sea scrolls, these are attributed to a couple of sources – (a) the Essenes, or (b) Jews trying to hide these manuscripts as they are fleeing the destruction of Jerusalem. Isn’t it unbelievable that a relatively recent occurrence can have conflicting possible theories as to what could have happened? Either way, the scrolls do not disprove Jesus. In contrast, they actually verify that the Old Testament as we know now, is basically unchanged after two thousand years.
How about the references of Pliny the Younger, Mara Bar-Serapion, Tacitus, and Suetonius to early Christians? Or how about the existence of Christians today? The New Testament described how a group of Middle Eastern believers delivered the gospel message to Jerusalem, Samaria and to the ends of the earth? Isn’t that happening until now? Why ignore this evidence?
BELIEVER1976, this isn’t an esoteric field where one needs to rely on expert interpretation of evidence. We have original sources available on the Internet, and no special nuanced interpretation is necessary to note that the Gospels and every other ancient source about Jesus are fantastical accounts of a larger-than-life figure written long after the “fact,” no two of which can agree on anything of significance past his name and the fact that he was very important. Nor is it difficult to examine the extensive actually-contemporary record and discover that nobody alive at the time even heard a rumor of any of these unbelievable events happening right under everybody’s noses.
All the references you cite are of people not even born until decades after the end of Pilate’s reign. Mara Bar-Serapion only makes a parenthetical reference to an unnamed misfortune some vague time in the past and the king who presided over it. The others thought Christians were lunatic cultists no different from today’s Raelians. And I ignore the existence of Christians today as evidence for Christ for the same reason you yourself ignore the existence of Raelians and their eagerness to die for their beliefs as evidence for the existence of Rael.
Cheers,
b&
The sources you cite give evidence for the existence of Christians. *No one* is doubting that. However, the existence of Christians is not evidence for the existence of Christ, any more than the existence of Raelians is evidence for the existence of Rael, as Ben pointed out (I usually use the adherents of the Greek Olympian religion as my go-to illustration, but I like Ben’s better).
My own take is that while Ben’s roundup of the evidence is pretty convincing of the non-existence of the historical Jesus, it is not quite 100% ironclad. I’m willing to entertain the possibility that Jesus is historically analogous to King Arthur; that is, the bare possibility that some historical figure might actually have existed, around whom huge numbers of easily-understood legends accreted. I believe this view is know as euhemerism.
But, let’s grant, for the sake of discussion, that a Jesus of Nazareth actually lived. That does not imply, or even support, any of the acts or words attributed to him by the early Christians, whether in the NT or not. The Jesus Seminar has come up with, using legitimate literary analysis techniques, a short list of sayings considered to be authentic (given the presupposition that Jesus actually existed). The miracles can be dismissed along with the miracles of every other soi-disant prophet/incarnate god/wonder worker of antiquity (see David Hume for details, or just memorize John Updike’s dictum: “Miracles are bunk”). The virgin birth was memorably refuted by Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great, pages 22-23). The resurrection has exactly zero supporting evidence, outside of the writing of adherents to the religion, and is therefore to be treated the same as the Muslims’ claim that Mohammed flew up to heaven on his horse. The various soteriological doctrines are merely unevidenced statements. Not only is there no evidence for heaven and hell, it is hard to imagine how there could be. A fair number of supposedly historical statements or events mentioned in the NT are known to be incorrect (the census at the time of Jesus’ birth) or can easily be seen to be non-historical (the appearance of spirits to people in Jerusalem in Matthew 27.51-53). And please don’t get me started on angels and demons.
I would be interested in hearing any argument for the “truth” of Jesus or christianity that (1) isn’t prima facie ridiculous (the statement, “you just have to take it on faith” simply won’t wash); (2) isn’t unadorned special pleading; or (3) can’t be reworked in an analogous manner to support the truth claims of another, analogous religion, such as mormonism or islam.
@Ben Goren – I just found out that most modern scholars believe in the historical figure of Jesus Christ, whether they are Christians or not. So yes, you may want to consider their evidence. Some notes below:
*In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: “He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees” B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. page 285
*Michael Grant (a classicist) states that “In recent years, ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus’ or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.” in Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200
*Richard A. Burridge states: “There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more.” in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (Apr 1, 2004) ISBN 0802809774 page 34
*Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 16 states: “biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of non-existence of Jesus as effectively refuted”
“IAMBELIEVER1976”. As per the rules of this website, as a believer I can ask you to answer the following questions.
1. What is the evidence that convinces you so strongly that there is a God?
2. What makes you so sure that your God is the right God (the Christian God) rather than other Gods. Muslims, for example, do not see Jesus as the divine son of God, and believe you will go to hell if you believe that. They are as sure about that as you are about its opposite. What makes you so certain that you are right and the others are wrong. You are probably a Christian by accident of birth, and were you born in Saudi Arabia you would be a Muslim with just as much fervor as you are a Christian.
You will not be allowed to post further before you answer these questions, and your answers may also determine whether you’re allowed to post at all. We don’t want people spouting unevidenced superstition on this site.
“1. What is the evidence that convinces you so strongly that there is a God?”
The evidence of GOOD / RIGHT around us. It is a universal observation too. When I was an atheist, my argument for being such was that the world is just too imperfect, too unjust, and too cruel. But then, where did I get the idea of imperfect, if I don’t have a slight idea of perfect? What is unjust, if I don’t have the idea of being just?
An image that helped me a lot is this – if a person sees another human being in trouble because he is being attacked by a dangerous animal – he would probably do two things: (a) help that person, and (b) run away and ignore the person. If I’m not mistaken, both options are explained in evolution. The option to help would be considered the herd instinct, and the option to flee is the instinct to survive. There’s a third thing in play however, which I shall call C, and C is neither A or B. C would be the ability to choose either to do A or B. And the universal opinion is that choosing OPTION A is GOOD.
The evidence of GOOD / RIGHT around us is something that can be observed on a daily basis, although much less dramatic than the scenario I described above. It’s a universal observation too, and though there may be variations as to what people would consider GOOD / RIGHT, there is a universal understanding amongst humans as to what is GOOD / RIGHT. I would go further and say there is in every person something beyond our instincts, a higher power that governs how we are. It’s been called morality, or conscience – whatever it is, it points to something beyond and separate from our instincts.
There’s also the evidence of PURPOSE / MEANING around us. I don’t need to provide details in these. But these are the evidence I know which is non-material, which even if SCIENCE is in perfect form, would never be able to answer. But just because it cannot be answered, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They do exist. And in life, these things cannot be ignored, in fact, they are very important. Where does goodness / purpose / meaning come from? The answer points to a Creator, who is GOOD, has a PURPOSE and is MEANINGFUL.
I believe I oversimplified, but I’m out of time. If you’ll allow me, perhaps I can come back to answer your question #2.
But “good” and “right” are just intersubjective social constructs. The fact that your claim, “there is a universal understanding amongst humans as to what is GOOD / RIGHT,” is manifestly false – as many religions and other ideologies repeatedly show – is a dead giveaway of the lack of any objective value.
“There’s also the evidence of PURPOSE / MEANING around us. I don’t need to provide details in these.”
Well, I don’t see any purpose or meaning around us beyond what we give to our own lives, so, if you believe there is more than that, yes, you do need to provide details of that evidence!
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I thought it was this other guy, because I’ve been predicting since the early 80’s that he’d end up an Anglican bishop.
I’ve had my suspicions along those lines.
So far he has ended up as an Arsenic apostle.
Damn that’s good!
The arguments of religious fundamentalists here always remind of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. “Evidence? We ain’t got no evidence. We don’t need no steekin’ evidence”. I guess ’cause the bible tells them so, a line from some children’s song I learned in Sunday school long ago.