[Magdalen] Religion Without God?

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Actually, I was talking about the perception others have of Christianity,
so going on about what some gospel reading these folks have never heard is
irrelevant.

Probably most folks if pressed would say they don't look at those standards
as stone age, but more like bronze age or Iron age.

The standards hardly come from Jesus' lips.  We have a vanishingly small
store of knowledge of anything specific relating to Jesus.  The written
accounts were not assembled until decades after the fact.  Most of the
gospels would be like someone choosing today to write the story of the
Vietnam War, using only oral history.  And as for John (where Jesus turns,
for chapters at a time, into a talking head), it would be like doing the
same today, but for World War Two.

These late gospels may contain information gathered by others at an earlier
time.  Bob Fortna, for instance, does a good job of suggesting that parts
of the Fourth Gospel go back to a purported eyewitness account.  But we
have no assurance that such is the case.

We have, therefore, no standards that go back directly to Jesus.  What we
have are writings that witness how some communities in the late first
century saw the matter.  It is unfair to try to say with any certainty that
these materials go back to Jesus; they might or they might not.

My point -- which was totally utterly missed in the frantic efforts to find
something (anything) to find fault with -- was that most folks seem to be
of the opinion that all Christians believe in this terrorist god who throws
everyone into hell.  I was going to say, people outside of Christianity,
which probably would be accurate, but unfortunately, a lot of folks inside
Christianity also believe they have no choice except for this horrid
viewpoint.



James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente

On Sat, Dec 27, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Allan Carr <allanc25 at gmail.com> wrote:

> All one had to do this year was to listen to the very familiar gospel
> readings, each of which ended in a condemnation of those who don't believe.
> Our rector actually paid notice to these endings in one of his sermons when
> he said "Setting aside ..."
> These weren't stone age, they were from Jesus' lips.
> The lessons are inserted in our bulletin. Hearing and reading them, Sunday
> after Sunday, was not easy for me having noticed this condemnation at the
> very beginning.
>
>
> On Saturday, December 27, 2014, James Oppenheimer-Crawford <
> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > In many instances, the rejection is not of god, but of the god who is the
> > punitive tyrant who gets mad at us, judges us by stone age standards, and
> > sends people to hell.
> >
>
>
> --
> Allan Carr
>