People who don't know me often call me an atheist. But in all honesty... the scientific and NT questions simply run too deep for me to recite with both head and heart any of the creeds of Christianity

People who don't know me often call me an atheist. But in all honesty

I want to believe in God and a personal afterlife, and like Frank Schaeffer, author of “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace” (son of the apologist Francis Schaeffer), I do not deny myself prayers to God. I try in all ways to learn what is true, including prayer to God during times of questioning, questing and need. But both the cosmos and the Bible raise many questions of pain and suffering as well as competency of the Designer (who is possibly a Tinkerer), including whether the human species will even last. The stars have billions of years of life left in them since they burn via nuclear fusion and more stars continue being born in distant clusters. One can easily imagine the stars outlasting humanity by far. I also wonder how much truth lay behind the stories of Jesusʼ miracles in the Gospels. Regarding the latter question, Jesus was probably an apocalyptic prophet, but I tend to doubt the resurrection and other miracle stories, in fact you can see certain stories about Jesus grow in the telling from Mark to Matthew, Luke and John: Gospel Trajectories & The Resurrection (questions as well as sources to read or listen to)”

Furthermore, almost all the miracles occurred either in some unspecified “wilderness” or in small towns in Galilee, i.e., Jesus never visited the largest cities of Galilee nor is spoken of as having performed miracles in them such as Sepphoris which was located near Nazareth, nor did he perform miracles in other large cities like Caesarea Philippi, Tiberius, Hippos (the last two being on the shores of the Lake of Galilee). Instead, three smaller cities, mere towns, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum encompassed the area where Jesus performed most of his miracles, which scholars have appropriately nicknamed “the Evangelical Triangle.” Even after the people of those towns allegedly saw Jesusʼ miracles the citizens did not hail Jesus and start to follow him. So the Gospels have Jesus denouncing the three towns where he allegedly performed most of his miracles, and warning that judgment would fall on them. As for Jesusʼ greatest nature miracles, they were only said to have been seen by a few apostles in a boat (stilling a storm, walking on water), or on an unnamed mountaintop (the transfiguration, three apostles were allegedly there). Interestingly, the fourth Gospel, allegedly written by the same John who was one of the three apostles who viewed the transfiguration, does not mention that particular miracle at all. The only large city Jesus visits is Jerusalem where he is captured and crucified, and he performs no public healings there per the synoptic Gospels but merely preaches (except for one miracle of healing in Jerusalem mentioned in the late fourth Gospel). Even the late added narrative of the bodily ascension of Jesus in Luke-Acts, is said to have only been seen by the remaining eleven apostles. Here is a guy rising into the clouds, but apparently doesnʼt want everybody to see it. Even weirder is how in Luke the raised Jesus proves he is flesh and bone and then “led them out” of Jerusalem to Bethany, but with no mention of anybody noticing, no mention of people spying the raised Jesus, or the apostles shouting Hosanna as this resurrected flesh and bone Jesus allegedly is leading his apostles out from one large city to a nearby town (compare all the Hosannas when Jesus entered the city). In other words, Jesusʼ exit is very hush hush. And as I said Jesusʼ alleged miracles are only said to have happened in out of the way places, like some unspecified “wilderness” or on an unspecified “mountaintop” or in three towns in particular (not even cities) in Galilee (where they rejected him), or the most spectacular miracles are only seen by a few apostles. Not sure I believe such stories, including the raising of Lazarus tale in the fourth Gospel which seems to have resulted from combining earlier tales in earlier Gospels, resulting in a new story: “Scent from heaven? Who nose? Do tales of Jesusʼ anointing, resurrection & bodily ascension, bear the aroma of truth?”

Add to that the way the resurrection tales contradict one another, and how nobody sees Jesus exit the tomb. His bodily resurrection is an implied miracle in the first and earliest Gospel but is declared in the two last-written Gospels of Luke and John to be a very physical resurrection. The earliest telling in Mark says only that the tomb is declared empty. The closest we come to a first person letter from someone saying they saw the raised Jesus is where Paul mentions in two letters that “he appeared to me,” thatʼs all he says about it, and lists some appearances to others, with no times or places mentioned nor anything that was said or heard. And Paul says Jesus had a “spiritual body” instead of mentioning that Jesus had “flesh and bone” like in the last Gospels written, Luke-Acts. The earliest Gospel, Mark, does not have a post-resurrection appearance story. It just ends with the women fleeing an empty tomb, frightened, and telling no one anything (the Greek is highly emphatic, involving a repetition of the same Greek word to emphasize that the women did not say “anything” to “any[one]” [the Greek reads, oudeis oudeis], so how and when did the story about the discovery of an empty tomb arise? One wonders, since the text states emphatically that the women did not say “anything to anyone” about such a discovery. Sounds like even the empty tomb story might have arisen later. Paul certainly doesnʼt mention it, or the women. But later Gospels build considerably on that tale in Mark). Meanwhile the number of words and lessons allegedly taught by the resurrected Jesus AFTER he was raised, continued to rise in number from Mark to Matthew, and then reach their peak in Luke-Acts and John. Obviously the story was growing over time. “The Word About The Growing Words Of The Resurrected Jesus”.

Also see “New Testament Questions Galore From a Wide Range of Christian and Non-Christian Biblical Scholars”

So I donʼt know what to believe. Because nature contains a variety of pains that humans have struggled to bypass or avoid via intelligence, city planning, safety regulations, modern medicine and dentistry, and advanced detection devices that predict the weather and other changes in the environment (including marking danger zones), rather than accept such pains as part of Godʼs wonderful design. And itʼs not “sinners” who are plagued most by natureʼs pains but people unlucky enough to be in the paths of disasters and epidemics, or unintelligent enough not to take safety measures, or economically impoverished so their city or country cannot afford modern safety techniques and conveniences. Therefore natureʼs pains are not focused on “sinners.”

Also, the human species seems destined to perish while the cosmos goes on, and we might not even be the coolest species in the cosmos. Meanwhile the Gospels plead “mystery,” and Jesus says in places that he spoke to crowds (in those towns I mentioned) in ways “that they might not understand,” then then damned them for not hailing him and following him.

Ah, but there are miracles around the world if you read some Christian apologists. Especially in South America, where Catholicism is huge, or where the Pentecostal revival in the Philippines took place. Though other Christians doubt and question the wealth of Catholic miracles, and still other Christians doubt the alleged miracles in the Philippines. And we see the web articles and books by Joe Nickell who has been investigating a lot of allegedly Catholic miracle stories. While Keith Augustine has a web article about NDEs that raises many questions Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences. (Keith also has a book coming out in 2015, co-authored with Michael Martin on NDEs) Endless debates.

I figure that if there really was an infinite Being, one that did not want to remain very mysterious and behind the scenes, and/or that wanted everyone to be “saved” via trusting in tales of one true religion, wouldnʼt it be plainer?

So Iʼm agnostic, painfully so as I grow older, since I canʼt help but wish that this life and its memories does not end like everything else I see ending around us. I have lived long enough to see the next generation grow up ignorant of many of the key moments in history, song, literature, comedy and drama from my generation. The past seems doomed to be forgotten, along with the individuals in it. Cultural movements being and then end. Ideas change as well as styles. My own memories of earlier decades has declined, which I notice when I talk with friends from decades past. Iʼll keep praying and hoping. Add to that some meditating (hat tip Will Bagley).

See also this blog post with links to Miracles from all religions (including amazing coincidences that seem to just happen and are not related to a religion), when viewed together, provide a crazy mixed bag of “evidence.” Miracles from all religions (including amazing coincidences that seem to just happen and are not related to a religion), when viewed together, provide a crazy mixed bag of “evidence.” So how can “God or WhateverIsOutThere” expect us to know what to make of them?

3 comments:

  1. Since I don't have a website or publish or speak publically, people don't call me anything{:

    I agree with you on your comments about if there was a supernatural being who cared about humans we'd know more about it. I'm a naturalist in the sense that I tend toward accepting things I can see/confirm personally, but am shy of other things that I can't. I am shy about the saving works of grace proclaimed by many Christians. What does that mean? Of course most Christians can explain it, but they use terms/words that are equally vague and unverifiable. At most it is something that one takes on faith as having happened or even being significant. Even if much of the Bible is true...ie a Jesus said all these things, it doesn't mean he was right. Even if he was a god of some sort, there's no reason to automatically think that what a god says to humans is true. A god who designed the world the way it is may well be malevolent or at least a trickster...or as you mention a tinkerer perhaps on the order of the kid who experiments with ants and flies...or the lab technician who experiments with different ways of killing bacteria. Does the lab technician believe herself malevolent when they kill a colony of bacteria?

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  2. continued:

    The terms agnostic and atheist do not seem to me to be flip sides of each other or gradients on a scale. It seems like they pertain to different thought processes. Theism/atheism seems to pertain to what one believes. Gnosticism/agnosticism seems to pertain to what one knows or thinks one can know. I consider myself a gnostic atheist in that I do not have a god belief, i.e. I don't think there is a god. BUT, I think that if there was a god, we'd know it. I think the world would be a much different place if it was designed by some entity who was powerful, intelligent and caring. THAT is why I am an atheist, I simply can't see that the world was created...it seems happen chance and haphazard...a cluster flub, so to speak. Well that an I see no "power" demonstrated by any god-followers. No one stands out as being better off, having any greater success, getting along better, avoiding trouble better. They just all kind of muddle through telling themselves coincidences are answers to prayer and that trouble is the penalty for sin or god's way of showing us things and making us better people.

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  3. finally:

    I find it fascinating that so many intelligent people...much more intelligent them myself...are so convinced that the stories in the Bible and the handful of other historical references amount to strong evidence of the miracles and resurrection of Jesus. There seem to me to be so many much more mundane and more plausible explanations for how those stories came about. I have the same thoughts as you pertaining to, for example, Paul's witness. He never says he "saw" Jesus. He mentions Jesus appeared to him. That is a totally different connotation than "saw" IMHO, and it's fascinating and a bit frustrating that apologists are so strident that it, of course, supports the idea of a physical resurrection. For me it supports the idea that folks back then held visions, hallucinations and dreams in much higher regard than most do today. THAT is why Jesus stopped appearing to people...because they started realizing that dreams weren't real things but were the brain working overtime and, more importantly, dreams visions and hallucinations can be "directed" or "due to" our conscious thought. If someone thinks a lot about a certain thing...like "why did my revered leader die and where did he go?" it is likely they'll have dreams or visions about said revered leader. Those visions might be about him somehow coming back to life or appearing to them, much the way I've dreamed about my dead parents. I've talked to them, touched them and seen them vividly IN MY DREAMS. If I was inclined to believe dreams communicated real events, I'd believe my parents were still alive and communicating/communing with me.

    I enjoy your posts, BTW.

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