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Some Guy writes a riveting blog which often includes extended anecdotes purportedly from his childhood and youth. Most of these mix horror, humor, pathos, and sentimentality into a compelling brew. One of his stories ends with his Dad telling him "I don’t fucking care if you’re a faggot or anything. You’re still my son and I still love you". Another is titled "My Micronesian Stepfather was a White Supremacist Amateur Elvis Impersonator". It seems unlikely that all the stories could possibly be true; if they are his is truly one of the more unlucky childhoods of anyone in the United States, and his ability to transcend it to become (what seems to be) an upstanding citizen is miraculous. But in another sense, it doesn't really matter if these stories are true: even as fiction they lose none of their power. Each of these stories could happen, and they contain a core of truth about large swaths of our society.
Some Guy seems to (cautiously and mildly) align with Jordan Peterson on the topic of Cultural Christianity: that is, the concept that even if you don't believe in God, or the Incarnation, or the Resurrection, you should still go to church and perform the outward rituals and ceremonies of the Christian religion. Christianity has, as a meme, proved itself to be pro-social, pro-growth, and pro-peace and we don't have a better replacement. Better to treat Christianity as a Chesterton Fence and embrace it even against your reason than to cast it aside and be left in a Nietzschean void.
Some Guy recently published an article in favor of Cultural Christianity. His main goal in the essay seems to be to convince sympathetic atheists to attend religious services. He calls the "obvious" objections distractions, and seems to think that many of these objections will be naturally addressed through interactions with the religious community. If he is holds orthodox Christian views (I believe he is Roman Catholic), then such questions could only be addressed truthfully in the Church; but he asks these atheists to attend synagogues and mosques as well. Perhaps he considers any religious exposure a positive step in an atheist's journey towards Christ.
In his next section of the essay on Dawkins, he reveals another glimpse into the way he thinks of Christianity. Given the question "Do you believe Jesus died for our sins?", he answers "Yes, but you have to begin from the position that Jesus wasn’t just some guy who arbitrarily claimed a particular title. It was as if morality itself became a person. I find the moral innovations of Jesus to be something close to the mechanical equivalent of finding a functioning F-35 jet plane in ancient Egypt. Do you know what people were like before that guy got nailed to a cross? Crack open a history book.". What an astonishing thing to say! "Jesus died for our sins" is "real" because after Jesus died, we literally sinned less! We went from barbaric and cruel to civilized and moral*.
I'm guessing that the following is a fair summary of Some Guy's theology: Some Guy believes in God. He believes God reveals himself in various ways. Humanity, in its own way, tries to comprehend the transcendent Truth, and does so imperfectly. Over time, humanity gains more and more knowledge of God. Judaism may have been the best human effort to understand God until Christianity came along; and still holds much wisdom and truth. But both Judaism and Christianity merely scratch the surface of what we can possibly understand about God and should not be treated as the final or only word on the matter. The Gospel narrative was humanity's closest interaction with the divine (even if there wasn't a literal incarnation) and the resulting Testament gives us an opaque glimpse into that divine, using the only means that imperfect and distinctly sub-divine humanity could use. "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
I disagree with this argument, but I also find it difficult to counter. It is a much more compelling line (though superficially similar) to the "all religions contain truth" platitude that many Gen Xers felt was the best way to end uncomfortable conversations in the 90s and early 00s. I do hold that humanity can never know everything about God (mathematically, this is a certainty: He is infinite, we are finite). And much like I enjoy Some Guy's writing even if his stories are fiction, I accept that there is much wisdom and truth in parables and fiction. As Jordan Peterson might say, "there is more truth in Dostoyevsky than in a newspaper". People will fight and die for an idea much more readily than they will fight and die for a fact. Someone who "believes" in Christianity in such a way could even say the Nicene Creed with a clear conscience: while the words may not be literally true they come the closest that we can come today in capturing our understanding of God.
And yet, the Bible makes many assertions that do not countenance ambiguity. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.". "Today you will be with me in paradise". And "For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! .... If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." These are not the words of apostles that are struggling to describe the transcendent: these are definitive statements made by those who believed they were writing factual accounts. Without the literal Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection, we truly do not have hope and are among all the most to be pitied.
*Empirically, I do not find this argument compelling...humanity even in "Christian" Europe remained quite "cruel" (at least by modern sensibilities). Yes, Christianity elevated the status of children, women, and the downtrodden; but wars and violence continued (and continue) to be the norm.
Cultural Christianity isn’t a real thing. You don’t go around saying ‘Christianity may not be true but it’s closer than anything else’. No, you say ‘Jesus was God who died for your sins and this is what he wants you to do’. Nobody cares about the first statement.
This reminds me of Lewis: either Christ was a liar, a madman, or the Son of God.
Eh, the fourth option is that Saul of Tarsus was the liar who corrupted the word of Jesus to further his own interests and strike the killing blow in his persecution of the nascent Christians by twisting the words of their Great Teacher until they became the antithesis of what Jesus truly wished to convey.
Remember, Saul never met the physical Jesus before his crucifixion. In fact in Matthew 24:27 Jesus warns his followers against believing anyone who says they saw Jesus in the wilderness or in a secluded place after he is crucified. And what did Darth Saul do to ingratiate himself with the Christians? Yep, he claimed to "miraculously" see Jesus first in the wilderness (road to Damascus) and then in a secluded place (the Jerusalem Jail where he was held captive).
In the end Saul was successful beyond his wildest dreams when he first set out to persecute the Christians. Not only did he manage to completely pervert the religion of Jesus but like a cuckoo bird he also successfully placed himself into the religion as one of the greatest "followers" of Christ with many billions of people venerating him in the two millennia since he died; he even had the gall to "correct" Peter (Galatians 2:11), the real true greatest follower of Jesus. And worst of all this veneration still continues to this day with no sign of stopping!
TLDR: Christianity got cucked by Saul and still isn't willing to accept what really happened.
The others on the road heard the voice of Saul.
This also does a pretty awful job trying to account for the enormous effort he put into spreading Christianity throughout the world. Not to mention undergoing imprisonments and a host of other ills, culminating, if the tradition is to be believed, in his martyrdom. I can't take this very seriously.
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Well, I mean, how did that work out for him? Did he laugh all the way to the bank? Retire in a villa overlooking Lake Albano?
Nah, he just successfully placed himself into the religion he had nothing do with until well after Christ's death as one of the most venerated saints with his legacy still going extremely strong today everywhere there is any Christianity. Sure he got executed for his beliefs but the long term remembrance he got with at least half of all humans alive today having heard of him (with most having a positive valence) far outweighs merely living out your life in some villa overlooking Lake Albano only to be forgotten by everyone by the year 250 AD.
The man died for his beliefs, and wrote about them extremely eloquently as he awaited his execution. The worst charge that could be leveled against Paul is that he was mistaken. And you know, generally speaking, I don't think he was.
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For sure. I bet he couldn't even feel the pain of suffocating to death under his own weight due to the warm feeling of satisfaction he got from a legacy he didn't have any inclination of at the time.
Now I've been under the impression he was beheaded (as he was a citizen) but yes your point stands.
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In what way did Paul twist Jesus' words or teachings? What is the actual perversion?
For example, the idea of salvation through grace isn't really something Jesus really talked much about himself, that's mostly a creation of post Gospel books.
When Jesus talked about getting into heaven, he was pretty consistently telling people to do specific things to make it in: sell all your possessions, give up your life to follow him, help the poor.
The idea that just believing in him would guarantee you a place in heaven regardless of your actions was basically all added after.
Are you sure? Jesus constantly recommends moral action, but I'd say that even in the synoptics, there seems to be an awareness that this by itself is insufficient? Take, for instance Matthew 19:16-27 (which is triple tradition, cf. Mark 10:17-31, Luke 17:18-30). It seems as though in those passages Jesus presents an impossibly difficult moral demand, the disciples wonder at how salvation may be possible, and Jesus says that it comes only through the action of God. He then goes on to reassure them that everyone who has followed him will be saved.
I find it hard to fit a passage like that into a model that says that Jesus was preaching salvation through good works. Jesus evidently thinks that good works are good, and that people should do them, but they do not seem to be sufficient for him. Some divine action seems to be necessary to bridge the gap between human moral effort and salvation.
See also passages like Luke 7:36-49, in which Jesus appears to suggest that a sinful woman has been forgiven on the basis of her great faith, rather than because of any meritorious work of righteousness in the world.
This story also seems reminiscent of the Anointing at Bethany (Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9), where the disciples protest at an extravagant sign of faith on the basis that the money could have been more efficiently allocated to the poor. Jesus chastises them and seems to approve of the woman's display of faith. (Take that, effective altruists?) Again it seems like for Jesus there is more to righteousness or salvation than the corporal works of mercy.
You may not count the epilogue to Mark as original to the gospel, and you may discount post-Resurrection appearances, but Mark 16:16 is also a statement directly attributed to Jesus saying that those who believe will be saved. You might also consider Matthew 10:8 ("You received without payment; give without payment") as relevant to Jesus' understanding of how divine favour operates?
It's true that in the synoptics Jesus never says in so many words "salvation is by grace", but there is enough, I think, to say that for Jesus salvation is something that involves both a kind of unilateral divine action, reaching out to sinful humankind, and the faithful human response to that action. The language of grace appears elsewhere. But I think it's plausible enough to see that language as an attempt to faithfully articulate a real feature of the teachings and actions of Jesus in his life.
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Perhaps you're excepting John, but it's pretty clear in John.
Jesus also forgives sins in the gospels.
I don't think Jesus actually intended every person to do every thing he spoke of. For example, he probably didn't intend for everyone to be gauging out their eyes.
I do think John deviates a bit from the other three to a suspicious extent, but what specifically are you talking about? I poked around in there but I didn't see anything that was particularly clear on salvation through grace.
Sure, but there's a big difference between "I forgive this particular act" and "mere belief in me automatically erases all acts"
Sure, maybe he's being metaphorical with some of this, but "he actually meant this unrelated and almost directly contradictory thing" should at least raise some eyebrows.
"And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." probably doesn't mean "don't worry about it, your sins don't matter as long as you believe"
It's pretty clear that we're saved by the father drawing us (see e.g. John 6:46 and surrounding), and it's by belief (same area, also John 3:16).
See the above reference in John. But no, it wasn't individual acts, but statements in general. See, e.g. Matthew 9:2.
What unrelated and almost directly contradictory things are you thinking of?
Correct, it doesn't. Sin's an awfully serious thing. Antinomianism is far too prevalent in modern lay Protestantism. We should certainly not be sinning more that grace may abound.
Edit: Should be John 6:44.
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From what I understand, Christianity - at least what we understand now by it - more or less is what Saul created. It's like saying Homer has "cucked" the Iliad - if there were some version of Iliad that is so much better than Homer's and more "true", we certainly don't have it, so what choice is there?
But where do you think Saul got that Christianity from?
There were the apostles, who knew Jesus himself, and Saul confirmed with them that what he was saying was accurate. (See Galatians 2.)
Where Muhammad got Islam from? Where Siddhartha Gautama got Buddhism from?
I'm sure he did, otherwise we'd know nothing about him but instead would know about some other guy that did.
Do you really think that those three figures were gathering knowledge in the same way? That doesn't seem terribly likely to me. They seem pretty different in how they go about things.
I don't know what you're trying to get at there, but I don't see how it interacts with the purpose that I mentioned it for: to indicate that Christianity is not just Pauline, but accurately conforms to what the direct followers of Jesus believes.
No, probably not - each religion's foundation it a rare and complex event which surely has its own peculiarities. My point is rather that the founding of the religion traceable to a person is not some exceptional event - it happens and it's possible. My other point is that foundational concepts of Christianity - such as the sacrifice and the resurrection of Jesus - originated with Saul and thus essentially he couldn't "corrupt" the "true" Christianity any more than Homer could "corrupt" the "true" Iliad.
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Correction: Saul says that Saul confirmed with them that what he was saying was accurate. Galatians was written by Saul if the accounts are to be believed.
And it is believed Pauline by basically all scholars. You think he was just being a devious liar in that?
Anyway, Acts also confirms contact with the disciples of Jesus.
No, I'm saying that Saul saying that Saul confirmed with James etc. that what he was teaching was correct doesn't tell us much because of course he would say that.
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Eh, both Jesus and Saul believed that the end of days was supposed to happen soon. I wonder how those early Christians reacted when Jerusalem was razed to the ground and the world kept on ticking.
Presumably they felt pretty vindicated.
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