… no, not really, but that is scarcely less daft than the statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the calamitous tsunami made him doubt the existence of God. As a ‘shoulder shrugging agnostic’ well on his way to just calling myself an atheist, I have serious doubt about the existence of God myself but surely re-evaluating a belief in God every time someone, or 130,000 someones, die does rather suggest a lack of having thought things through in the first place.
Unless we are nothing more that meat puppets dancing to a pre-ordained celestial script (which is certainly not Anglican doctrine), the fact we make use of our free will and thereby make decisions that result in us dying in a certain manner (such as, for example, deciding that we will live in a coastal community in southern Asia) neither proves nor disproves anything about the existence of God.
Now I have no doubt that the Archbishop is well aware of those arguments and is just indulging in the usual Anglican tradition of fogging issues whilst sounding concerned and looking earnest as an alternative to clearly articulating easy to understand (and thereby easy to attack) positions based on long established doctrines.
But then the current Archbishop is a strange bird and the things in which he has ‘faith’ suggests to me that placing too much stock in his judgement is faith misplaced. He says that he, like Tony Blair, has faith in the UN but thinks it should be reformed and improved by giving religious groups (naturally!) and nations not on the security council more power (such paragons of civil rights as Myanmar, Libya, Syria, Zaire and Iran perhaps?)…yes, he wants to have some official say over how the UN’s tax funded patronage gets doled out. And presumably in the spirit of ecumenicist tolerance would also extend that to other religious leaders as well. It is a marvel how the UN gets held up as even a potential source of moral authority by people like Rowan Williams who are supposedly in the ‘moral authority business’, when by design the UN is a club of national leaders that admits mass murderers, fascists, communists, rabid nationalists and kleptocrats of every strip into its rank.
The Archbishop is such a convenient whipping boy, though, that, if he did not exist, it would definitely be necessary to invent him, no?
“existEnce”. For crying out loud, you could at least check spelling in thread titles. It’s an elementary courtesy to your readers.
Personally I think the world would be a better place if all religions had the same capacity for self-doubt as Anglicans do.
Rob, it’s precisely because of this famed self-doubt and willingness to subordinate scripture to whatever is fashionable and advocated in the Guardian leader column that the C of E has been heamorraging members for decades as more confident faiths grow and grow.
Your points are fair, but in equal fairness to the Archbish, one must point out that what he actually said was that it would be surprising if questions and doubts about the existence of God were not being aired at such a time. He did not say that he himself shared those doubts.
Thanks Perry for letting me know that my dear archbishop is willing to step in a club worse than a tavern. I think times have changed and that he could, after all, get drunk (etc.) here instead of catching a – maybe Asian – flue in a foreign jamboree, with little chance of converting a soul or giving birth to any Christian child (“fogging issues” as you said). I’ll send him a petition telling him that we can practice his favourite vices on Motherland.
As for the way some Unesco directors love children, I think it is not for us to judge.
A Christian and a good reader.
Peter, that’s not true.
The Church of England is a continuing historical negotiation between Rome and Zurich.
Peter, come on, give me chapter and verse of where it has been subordinating scripture to the Grauniad. I bet you don’t even have a KJV.
Every age must reinterpret scripture anew, even if it comes to the same conclusions. Your worry about subordinating scripture reveals some kind of evangelical family background, a belief in sola scriptura. The C of E, like the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, the Lutherans and other episcopalian churches, believes in Scripture, Tradition and Reason. Particular emphasis on one of these gives us the Low, High and Broad wings of the Church. The self-doubt lies in holding these wings under one roof, to mix metaphors.
That is more of a reason it has been losing members. Read + Michael Ramsey on this. He spoke of the C of E as essentially a church on a journey. You will recall that it was once illegal to practise Roman Catholicism or Nonconformism. The C of E has done remarkably well, all things considered.
You would be confounded if you actually read official Anglican statements on masturbation and the other things you disapprove of and personally refrain from.
To be sure, many Anglican priests and bishops (Episcopalians in the US) spout drivel, but then the Anglican Communion has no Inquisition, as Rome has. It’s now called the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but it has disciplinary authority.
And I guess you have no idea just how many Roman Catholics in this country sanction abortion and other things forbidden by Rome.
Indeed, Roman Catholic social policy is a bit left-wing. Read the papal encyclical Centesimus Annus (it’s available in English for you) and be shocked. Historically, the C of E has taken a libertarian position on such matters: read the twenty-fourth of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Basically, keep your hands off my property, I shall be a moral agent in giving charitably of my own accord. This, I admit, was forgotten when the Faith in the City report was published.
Even when Christ came, we had Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents. Shit happens. But Perry’s right. The problem of evil, as theologians term it, is not a legitimate cause of doubt for believers in free will.
I like + Rowan Williams. He’s sound doctrinally, and that’s all that matters. Anglicans have long been used to ignoring bishops, right from Cranmer’s day. They’ve always gone into politics too deep. Nothing new.
Yadda yadda… it’s a wave, folks, no more special than a wave in a bathtub. Seafloor moves, wave happens. Deities not required.
But Julian, IT’S GOD’S BATHTUB! 🙂
The Archbishop has gone wobbly on his tsunami-sea legs. . . so much for pillars of strength in times of stormy seas. . . let’s re-christen him as the Archbishop of Anxiety and Apology. . . Shaking Spears
Most of the above comments, seem to justify my personal opinion that ‘organised religion’ is the true enemy of Christianity…
Ironic, that Williams’ ambivlent statement, casts even more doubt in the minds of his congregation, at a time when he should be espousing the more positive side of his faith, and encouraging unity, not doubt….
The man is not worthy of such high office.
I have to reiterate the comment made by Andrew Duffin; Perry, if you had read the article properly, you would have realised that the Archbishop said that he understood why people might doubt the existence of God – not that he did. I say this in the light of my own agnosticism which does not prevent me from understanding other people’s faith since our creation is a mystery that no-one can explain.
He adds: “The question, ‘How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?’ is therefore very much around at the moment
Of course it is, it’s one of the stock ripostes when discussing religion with atheists and agnostics, and yet here he is reinforcing the point. Would be better if he had some counter argument, if only along the line of some trite cliche, such as ‘pain and suffering are all part this life, and are part of God’s plan for mankind’.
After all, without the pain and suffering, life in this world would seem too much like Heaven…
Like so many professionals in this modern age, he gives the impression that he is just a ‘place-holder’, until the real thing comes along.
It is just wonderful that the British people seem to know instinctively the right thing to do, who needs the pontifications of a man like Williams?
Henry, the actual headline is very misleading.
Archbishop of Canterbury admits: This makes me doubt the existence of God
Prodnose: Thanks. Now get lost.
For the Doubting Thomas’s amongst you.
YES I am beginning to doubt the Archbishop of Canterbury’s existence.
Prodnose: This is not a thread but a blog and you are free to bugger off somewhere where spelling is up to your standards…
Actually, the Archbishop is displaying the only real sentiments that many religious people have to understand non-belief. That somehow we all still believe but are simply “angry” at god. It’s why they feel we must have a “faith”; because we’re so desperately clinging to non-belief rather than make peace with god. They think we’re “hurting”. That we’ve somehow replaced belief in god with non-belief in god because it’s easier to deal with the “pain”. Silly perhaps, but understandable given the limits of their point of view.
I think that if a god could allow such a vast number of people to die, then he could rightfully be called a cruel, negligent bastard. But that so many died (and die in other ways) tells us nothing about whether a god actually *exists* or not. Evidence, not anecdote. Data, not emotion.
Exactly. If all religions actually stopped to question their own beliefs once in a while, all religions would decline as precipitously as the C of E has! When the scriptures in question are as archaic as most religious texts are, a bit of subordination is probably a very good thing.
The C of E gets a lot of criticism, but I’d much rather they continued in their present form than become more like the “more confident” (interesting euphemism for “fundamentalist”) faiths that are gaining ground around the world.
Does nobody else think that it’s actually quite amazing that the head of a religious organisation can publicly discuss the question of whether his God actually exists? (and not only that, but doing so expressing tolerance and understanding for the negative view)
If you thought your invisible best freind had a part in genocide, then you’d be questioning the relationship too.
If there is a god, it is certainly unworthy of praise!
I’m trying to figure out he point of your article. The Archbishop of C. questions the existence of God in a rhetorical soundbite, and that means what?
Damn, it’s gotta be a slow bitch day here.
O.
100,000’s of people die every day. Do the math. The only difference was on that day a large number of them died in very photogenic places.
I don’t believe in free will, and I doubt that our invisible friend was expressing a statement on the morality of living close to the shore. It seems more likely that the purpose of disasters is to draw our attention to all the death around us in a fallen world, and to remind us of the power death has over us unless we repent and pray for foregiveness.
“If you thought your invisible best freind had a part in genocide, then you’d be questioning the relationship too.
If there is a god, it is certainly unworthy of praise!”
Huh? Death eventually effects 100% of the population whether you get it in a tsunami or in a car wreck or die in bed. My invisible best friend got it too, only He overcame it in the resurrection and promises to do the same for me. I’ll take the hope He offers. What else is there?
I wonder how many secular humanists even realize that their philosophy is built on a foundation of peculiarly Christian values?
At least with the Communists, it was fairly obvious from the results that less-than-divine sources of moral inspiration were at work.
We suffer and die because we, unlike the angels, are subject to the same physical laws as any other arbitrary collection of atoms in the universe. I for one am not anxious to see our species excused from these physical laws, seeing how much carnage and destruction we can achieve even within these limits. This appalling loss of life was equaled by any busy day in WWII, and there were a lot of busy days.
What exactly does the Archbishop mean? How exactly does his remarks answer anything?
Then you are really are a meat puppet? You could not help yourself but were compelled to read this blog by external forces?
Then why doesn’t he say that rather more clearly?
How do you figure that a disaster has a ‘purpose’?
I certainly realise that. I have been very influenced by Thomism. Just because I reject something that does not mean I do not understand it.
“Perry, if you had read the article properly, you would have realised that the Archbishop said that he understood why people might doubt the existence of God – not that he did.”
Um- what about the Telegraph’s headline: “Archbishop of Canterbury admits: This makes me doubt the existence of God.”?
As a Christian leader, I think Rowan badly missed a “teachable moment.”
What’s next, an announcement that “this might make some people might believe that Satan exists”?
Everyone who read the Archbishop’s article and not just the summary by Chris Hastings and accomplices, raise your hand.
Very good, Ernest. Now, the rest of you, click on the link in Perry’s original post. There’s a link there, labelled “Rowan Williams: Doubting God”, that takes you straight to the horse’s mouth (you may have to detour long enough to register, but at least it’s free).
Then compare what Archbishop Williams wrote to what Hastings says he wrote (start with the headline, WilliamP, “Of course this makes us doubt God’s existence.”)
Didn’t bloggers recently becomming famous for fact-checking journalists?
Because he’s a believer Perry. You don’t honestly think his god lets these kinds of tragedies happen by themselves, do you?
Now, if we had a spell checker that knows we mean “become” when we type “becomming…”
Those of us who have been following the Anglican story rather closely over the last year or so have doubted the existence of Dr. Williams for some time. He seems to have no appreciable effect on the church he heads so some of us speculate that he’s a Labour functionary they trot out for photo ops.
“Then you are really are a meat puppet? You could not help yourself but were compelled to read this blog by external forces?”
I was enabled to read this blog by a being that created an immense universe that at every instant and point obeys physical laws to at least 10 significant digits. What is your evidence for free will?
“Then why doesn’t he say that rather more clearly?”
Oh he does. Read Job 9:
5 He moves mountains without their knowing it
and overturns them in his anger.
6 He shakes the earth from its place
and makes its pillars tremble.
7 He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
he seals off the light of the stars.
8 He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea.
33 If only there were someone to arbitrate between us,
to lay his hand upon us both,
34 someone to remove God’s rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.
35 Then I would speak up without fear of him,
but as it now stands with me, I cannot.
Some years after that was written an arbitrator was sent., and he said repent and you will be forgiven.
From the article “Prayer, he admits, provides no “magical solutions” and most of the stock Christian answers to human suffering do not “go very far in helping us…”.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
This is misrepresentation and failure to fact check… Can we get a retraction from this blog, if not from the telegraph? I depend on my blogs to bring me the real news, not just knee-jerk reactions to headlines…
I’m puzzled by the temporal dimension of the Archie’s indictment of his boss (actually he’s doubting he has a boss). I mean, is allowing 130,000 of us to die in a couple of hours more cruel, than say, allowing about 60 million of us to die every year? (the average I think). Or how about the ‘cruelty’ of having pretty much ALL of us die before the century is out?
This Bishop needs the Monty Python treatment.
I’m puzzled by the temporal dimension of the Archie’s indictment of his boss (actually he’s doubting he has a boss). I mean, is allowing 130,000 of us to die in a couple of hours more cruel, than say, allowing about 60 million of us to die every year? (the average I think). Or how about the ‘cruelty’ of having pretty much ALL of us die before the century is out?
This Bishop needs the Monty Python treatment.
To Doug Murray:
Prior to my my post, no one had suggested such an egregious misquote by the Telegraph — something the paper is certainly not known for. May I suggest that you devote your energies to pointing this out, as opposed to crafting gloriously self-satisfied put-downs.
Perhaps you just had a bad day. In that case, you have my sympathy.
Alas Julian, but who moved the seafloor!…..
God is good.
God is all powerful.
Evil exists.
To believe all three, simultaneously, requires a mysterious level of faith.
Personally, I doubt my own ideas about “all powerful”. It seems to me that “free will”, in humans who live in moment-by-moment existence, is hard to reconcile with an “active” God. One who chooses, moment by moment, to ac t or not (like a Great UN in the sky? ha!).
God exists outside of time.
He seems to have had a few teaching moments of miraculous action, and mostly letting most humans live and inevitably die. Does God hope humans will believe in Him? I don’t know why else he would have created us.
Most survivors, of this and many other disasters, will have prolly have stronger faith. The alternative is so horribly … empty. And more believers will act in better ways than non-believers — by the standards of “better” as held by the non-believers themselves. This is a pretty strong empirical reason to support Belief (and mildly oppose even the hilariously funny Monty Ps.)
[The Archbishop DOES need to say what he means more clearly.]
Not unlike yourself, the Archbishop is a “hand-wringing” (if not shoulder-shrugging) agnostic.
You’re not a non-believer, how would you know?
Ah, of course. You believe and instantly you become a “better” person. And apparently, even us non-believers think so too.
Empriical? Believe and you’ll instantly be a better person? Sounds more selfish to me.
If God is all-powerful, as Christians presumably believe, then he/she/it/whatever sure has one twisted sense of humour.
I find it very hard any longer to believe there is an all-loving God, and it has taken me quite a long part of my adult life to put my faith into the trash can. Like Perry, I have learned a lot from the Christian tradition (the Thomist intellectual tradition), but I cannot any longer buy the idea of an all-loving, all-redeeming God. The latest horrors merely underscore my doubt. Sorry if this offends any Christians, but there it is.
The “trouble” with Dr Williams, I suspect, is that he is wiser than he realises.
The universe is at least six billion years old, so far as we know. God, if He exists and if He created it, must be even older than that. So, from the universe’s perspective, it doesn’t matter whether I die at 2 years of age, 20, or 200. Longevity from a human point of view is still an eye-blink to the universe.
That is why I never think of any one way to die as inherently more tragic than another. To be mortal, to be required to die, is not an affront to humanity. It is foolish to be outraged by mortality. It is an inescapable fact that no matter how or when we die, we will be dead much longer than we ever were alive.
It is mostly a matter of indifference to me personally when or how I die, except that I would like it to pose the least inconvenience and suffering to my family.
I am sorry that the children who died in the tsunami did not have a chance to live longer, and I am sorry for the grieving families of the people who were killed. But life is not a “good”; it just is. And no natural disaster should be taken as a referendum on the existence/non-existence of God, or as evidence that He does/does not care about the pain of individual human beings. Bluntly put, while we are alive, we are just not that important in the scale of the universe. Only if we are capable of existing eternally could we even be noticed by God.
My $0.02. Helluva way to start the year, if you ask me… not that anyone did. 🙂
Just where does it say that God is ‘all-loving’? I believe it says that he ‘can be’, which is not quite the same as ‘he is’.
As Jon Cohen notes, the Bible says otherwise, and not just in Job, but in other chapters also, not for nothing has the phrase ‘The wrath of God’ been around for a long time.
As I pointed out, if all was so perfect here in this life, with no ‘downside’, what would be the incentive to be considered worthy enough to gain entrance to Heaven, with it’s all embracing, one could say, – almost cloying perfection? After a few eons of eternity in such a place, it might be considered by some to be some sort of hell.
I still lean to the idea that he has tired of all the shenanigans here, and has just left us to our own devices. After all to such a grand architect we must seem very small fry…
Whether the Archbishop is wise or not, is beside the point, he should be the last person to question or doubt his faith in public. If he has concluded that there is no God, then he should in all conscience resign his position, otherwise he is no more than a hypocrite at the head of a third-rate welfare organisation. If he goes, what hope is there for the rest of us?
In response to these comments by Ian:
“The C of E, like the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, the Lutherans and other episcopalian churches, believes in Scripture, Tradition and Reason.”
The addition of reason as a source of primary and authoritative revelation alongside Scripture and Tradition is a purely Anglican notion. The teaching of the Roman and Orthodox churches has always been that God reveals himself primarily through Scripture and Tradition. This does not mean that God does not also reveal Himself through reason and nature, but these are not held to be authoritative in the way Scripture and Tradition are.
Lutherans in fact do not believe in Tradition either, but, like Calvinists and other classical Protestant churches, believe in Scripture alone. Also, not all Lutheran churches are episcopalian.
The Archbishop is a left wing postmodernist first and a Christian only second (if at all in any meaningful sense). When traditional Christianity gets in the way of his leftist and postmodern ideology, Mr Williams ditches Christianity. As a result he is certainly not doctrinally or morally sound.
I did not state Rowan Williams no longer believed in God but rather that his statement that a crisis of that belief is a normal thing (even for himself) when a disaster happens is not just a remarkable lack of leadership by someone in the ‘God business’ but, as I said, amazing given that death or one a million does not actually tell us anything about the existence or otherwise of God within the Anglican/Catholic meta-context and doctrines. That his why I regard his remarks as daft.
Perry is right on both points. The Archbishops remarks display a staggering lack of any understanding of his role or of how his remarks would be treated by the media.
Also, as Perry points out, the issue of the death of one or one million people says nothing at all about God’s existence as far as traditional Christianity goes.
Is anyone learning and sharpening their understanding and world-view in this blog? or are we all just sounding off with our opinion and congratulating ourselves on sufficiently articulating it (“strengthening our positions)?
Winzeler,
Yes, I have learned something, – that Dr. Williams is a ‘square peg in a round hole’, that he is also an unwitting hypocrite, and should seriously consider resigning.
That the demise of the Cof E, has as more to do with poor leadership than anything else.
As you say – more a confirmation of position. And you – did you learn anything?
I’m learning that:
…many of those who do not believe in God seem to presume he is benevolent (a term not found in the Bible).
…theists cannot argue atheists into belief.
There is one thing I would yet like to learn. Christians attempt to proselytize because they believe non-Christians are on their way to hell (eternal torment) and wish to intercede. Why do atheists proselytize?
Winzeler,
Good one that…. I guess atheists proselytize, because ‘misery likes company’, and they work on the theory that – ‘If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me…’
From reading this thread it would seem that ony half of the participants bothered to read Rowan’s real comments. So for your benefit here is the URL.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/02/do0201.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/02/ixportal.html
You can waste your time debating what you think Rowan said without actually reading it and waste bandwith, or you can read it and have an inteligent debate.
ernest young
There are texts in the Bible about God’s love, and it is a sign of the times that they are not better known. The most famous that comes to mind is from the Gospel of John, Ch. 3, verses 16 and 17:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the wold; but that the world through him might be saved.
And another from the First Epistle of John (possibly the same John – there were a lot of Johns about), Ch. 4, verses 7 and 8:
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.
Surely some Christians can supply more, off the top of their heads? One of the strangest features of the Christian and to a great extent other religions, is how it has managed to turn the concept of a Deity supposedly responsible for the whole of the cosmos and its workings, into someone that loves them. How it survives, after celebrating its beautiful and touching Christmas story, the terrible Boxing Day that succeeded it, will be a sort of miracle, but I think it will, despite the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Just thought I would check back in to see the progress of the thread before I close off for the day, only to discover once again that people are choosing to debate what they think Rowan said and not what he actually did say. I don’t think I will waste my time by spelling it out, because Rowan did that so well in the article linked in this blog by my previous post. let’s just say that if you are going to debate well you must first learn to read well.
hopless totally hopeless ……….
Bill,
I did read the original piece by three Telegraph reporters, but I did not read your link, assuming it to be to the same item, same dateline etc. Just shows you what ‘pieces of work’ these reporters really are, criticising an op-ed piece that appears inthe same issue. However;
Dr. Williams quote;
He adds: “The question, ‘How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?’ is therefore very much around at the moment,
Casts doubt and offers little spiritual comfort when compared to, the quote from the Archbishop of Wales, all those years ago;
What he said was roughly this: “I can only dare to speak about this because I once lost a child. I have nothing to say that will make sense of this horror today. All I know is that the words in my Bible about God’s promise to be alongside us have never lost their meaning for me.
My point being, and has been all along, that he, above all, should have either found the words to provide some reassurance of faith, as did the Archbishop of Wales, or he should not have said anything until he had given his words more serious consideration.
He seemed more interested in expressing his personal doubts than in offering any sort of spiritual succour to his congregation.
As you say ‘hopeless totally hopeless ……….,’ and I have to agree with you..
“Christians attempt to proselytize because they believe non-Christians are on their way to hell (eternal torment) and wish to intercede.”
Thisd may be true for Protestant fundamentalists and some Evangelicals, but it is not true for all traditionalist Christians.
I would rather say that we seek to bring people to the Gospel because the Gospel itself is a liberating and healing power, and because through it we come to abundant life.
The Orthodox position is not that non-Christians are on their way to Hell, but that they do not have the Gospel. Who is or is not on their way to Hell is not determined by what religion they follow, but by what is in their heart. A person may find Christ without ever joining a Christian Church. The difference is not that a member of a Christian Church is automatically going to have eternal life, but that for the Christian the road has been cleared, paved, and pioneered by Christ. The non-Christian may well find Christ in his or her own way, but it is much more difficult.
Shawn, I suppose it depends on how you define “Christian” and “Church.” There is the origanized establishment “Christian” and “Church,” which are not the same as the biblical “Christian” and “Church.”
I partially agree with your comments about the Gospel. It has often been my source of strength and joy. But both sides need to be accepted: there is life in the Gospel and death and hell outside it.
To clarify, I refuse to liken myself to the names “Protestant,” “Evangelical,” “Catholic,” “Orthodox,” and the like because I will not have a human establishment dictate to me the tenants of my faith. My faith comes strictly from the Bible and my spiritual perception of it.
That said, I suppose I agree “this is not true for all traditionalist Christians.”
For anyone interested, here is a short WSJ article on the issue of God and the tsunami. This is one of the best commentaries on the issue I have seen so far. And kudos to the WSJ for choosing an Orthodox theologian! Rowan Wlliams should sit at this mans feet for a while.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006097
Shawn,
Thanks for the link. Very elegant prose.
And the theists wonder why atheists find them distasteful, after having made a statement like that.
We proselytize? Where? When? To whom? On Sundays? On your doorstep? On “Songs of Non-Praise?”, On “Thought for the Day” or dozens of other such shows across the land? With flyers? With banners outside our Churches? At AA meetings? On the Governments (The Peoples) dime through faith-based initiiatives? Through organizations such as teh Samaritans Purse? On dedicated cable TV channels? Erecting religious monuments on public property? On Street corners?
This is a prime example of that limited understanding by way of limited point of view I mentioned earlier. If you were to be completely honest about it, you really have no understanding of non-belief, do you?
Besides, not being a non-believer, how would you have ANY notion of why we would proselytize, even if we actually did?
Incorrect. We get TOLD by believers that he’s benevolent. They’re your words, not ours. We think he would be intolerably cruel, in fact (if he indeed exists). Why is it you don’t know this stuff? Where do you people get your ideas about what non-believers think? Sunday Sermons? You do know there are websites where you can find out what non-belief is actually about.
Very true, and thankfully the burning/dunking/hanging has been made illegal, so that’s two avenues closed to you. All that’s left now if for you to provide the scientific evidence that this god exists.
James , you are the definitive fool…
If you do not believe, why go around spouting about it, other than trying to prove to all and sundry what a clever chap you are? – and that is another misconception that you have.
So you are a non-believer, (I use that term, as you do not have the brain to be an atheist), right, then mind your own business and don’t interfere with things that do not concern you… your opinion does not matter, it is of no consequence and is irrelevant.
Shouldn’t you be back at school now,?
bloody christians, the whole lot of you, I agree with Ernest Young It’s organised religion thats the problem. I’ve no doubt that Jesus existed as a person but I think why he was considered a ‘special’ person was because of the politics of the time. His main point was that one should have ones own relationship with whatever God (or not) & cut out the middle man, That the organized temples were just structures to keep people in their place, he was if you like, a revolutionary thats why he smashed the temple, He must be breakdancing in his tomb at the thought that he tried to destroy this system only for it to be replaced by the catholic church, I’m sure if he did come back the first thing he’d do would be to assasinate the pope (a bit like the fella that did actually attempt it). The whacky magic & stuff, healing the sick or whatever might have happened or it might have been blown out of proportion, but when he said he was the son of god I at least think he meant we are all the son of god & thus must have make our own relationship with perhaps a more abstract god, without priests reinterprating it all for us, without religous groups killing each other over minor details of faith. The first thing you have to do with the bible is to chuck out all the ambiguous stuff (Rasta style) & one is left with not that much. He was known as an activist against the church an so he’s probably the most misunderstood person that walked the planet. You can’t use the bible as anything but a remote clue to what actually happened it was written at least 40 years after he died & most of it was chucked out or ‘reinterprated’ because it didn’t fit in with the politic of the time. If everyone just got on with their own sweet religion (or not) quietly there would’nt be half the problems in this world. It’s the obsession of all these religions to convert thats the problem.
God may have some benevolence, but it is not specifically his defining characteristic. If I thought it was, I would not be able to believe in hell. So they are not my words. I think he loves you and I think he loves me, but I also think he loves himself in true righteousness more than both of us. I do not think he would forsake justice on account of people, but in order to balance justice and love, he sacrificed his Son.
James, you attacked me for not understanding atheists (non-believers, I guess you would say) -something I readily admitted, even seeking clarification as to why they think the way they do.
May I suggest you reread this blog and consider the tenor of the comments. I don’t think you should find that I have been distasteful.
hermit, where do you get your information about Jesus if the Bible is not reliably true?
ernest, I am also learning that there is bitterness (resentment, maybe) from atheists toward Christians in general as a result of times past when so-called Christians used forced proselytization as a means of power -a notion not shared by their founder, Christ.
Perry, please keep posting things of this nature. They make for excellent discussion.
Atheists
You must remember that you believe that religion is a HUMAN ARTIFACT. There’s no point in getting indignant about it. God didn’t put it there.
Agnostics (including me)
The above (for Atheists) is our default position. We think all the evidence seems to point that way.
Religion asks “Why?” and tries to answer it.
Atheists say it’s a meaningless question; agnostics tend to follow.
Both say “How?” is a more useful question – but often with a dusty answer.
I always find it strange that christians talk about things like this making them doubt whether their god exists, or asking what purpose he had for it. Their own mythology describes a god who would be perfectly willing to kill 100,000 people for no other reason than that they weren’t christian. I’ve actually been waiting for Jerry Falwell or the like to come right out and say that “god did it to punish the nonbelievers,” but I guess he learned from the 9/11 thing that most christians don’t like to be reminded what sort of character they’re worshipping.
Ken, where does the Bible say God killed 100,000 people for not being Christian? Keep in mind that the term Christian was first used in the first century.
Jerry Falwell has always troubled me because he seems to quick to criticize non-believers in the name of defending the faith -something I don’t see modeled by the Bible. Rather it says things like “[God is] not willing that any should perish,” talking about salvation.
According to the Bible God did in fact call for the destruction of nations and peoples in the Old Testament. However, since Christ it has not been recorded as being on his agenda (The Bible does not prescribe things like the Crusades and witch hunts).
I really do hope none of the Jerry Falwell types come out saying anything like that. Those guys are slid under the microscope by too much of the world to be making wreckless statements -something they seem to do all too often, like the Archbishop of Canterbury. That said, the Bible doesn’t ask anyone to trust them for salvation. They don’t make good saviors, only Christ does.
“Their own mythology describes a god who would be perfectly willing to kill 100,000 people for no other reason than that they weren’t christian.”
Er….no it doesnt. I have been a Christian for twenty years, and I’m reasonably well read on the history and teachings of the Church and the Church Fathers, and that is certainly not a traditional view. It is not even a common one today.
Jerry Falwell’s cartoon version of Christianity is not traditional, it is in fact quite modern, fundamentalism and liberalism being two sides of the modernist coin.
The one exception to this might be the Calvinists, who believe in predestination and the absolute soveriegnty of God over creation (also not a traditional view). But imho Calvin was a totalitarian control freak and a fool who unwittingly introduced Islamic heresies into the Faith. Thats why idiots like Falwell so often sound like the mad Mullahs.
Shawn, could you explain further your last two sentences and give some places where I might research that notion?
Winzeler, I’m not sure how familiar you are with Calvinist theology but essentially Calvin taught that God is absolutely soveriegn over all creation, that He has decreed all that happens (including things like the tsunami), as well as who is to be saved and who is to be lost. This effectively robs humans of free will. Calvin also taught that Christ died not for the whole world, but only for the elect.
Islam also teaches the absolute soveriengty of God and that He has decreed and predestined all that happens.
So, while there are differences, the two idea in Islam and Calvinism are close enough to lead to similar kinds of thinking about things like natural disasters or events like 911.
Absolute soveriegnty and absolute predestination cannot be reconciled with eith the Biblical witness taken as a whole, nor with the teaching of the Fathers and Tradition.
I have come to this view from reading Calvinist literature, and talking to Orthodox and Catholic priests. Decide for yourself, but the place to start would be with the larger and shorter Westminster Catechisms.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html
Winzeler, Facts are known about the politics of biblical times from other sources than the bible. The BBC made a very thought provoking series called ‘The Son Of God’ which looks at the Bible (& other sources) in a sympathetic but more rational perspective. I think It’s far more likely that he was executed more as a political trouble maker because in those days the Temple & the Romans were finding it pretty difficult to keep the peace & the last thing they needed was someone going around saying ‘you don’t need the church’. it’s a matter of interpretation.