Freethought & Rationalism Archive

pharoah · 02-06-2006, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

The story does teach an important moral lesson.

If you know that a ruthless tyrant is planning to kill children, warn your own child and let the others look out for themselves. There is no need to try to save them.

Yea, the fundamentalist is faced with the choice of which end of the rattler to pick up. If the story is true then God's a monster, if false then the birth narrative starts to come apart at the seams.

Steven Carr · 02-06-2006, 04:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christ's Reject

In an attempt to be unbiased I'm going to read an academical modern apologetics book that he's going to lend me.

What was the name of the modern academical apologetics book again, please?

Christ's Reject · 02-06-2006, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

What was the name of the modern academical apologetics book again, please?

Oh the irony :grin:

I'm still going to read that book online, but I really doubt I'll agree with it if its fundementalist. However, I'll give it a shot.

RUmike · 02-06-2006, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christ's Reject

Oh the irony :grin:

I'm still going to read that book online, but I really doubt I'll agree with it if its fundementalist. However, I'll give it a shot.

Where's the irony, and why won't you give the name of the book?

Christ's Reject · 02-06-2006, 10:00 AM

As I said, J. Gresham Machen was the apologeticist that I was recommended to read. I was told to read any of his works. The irony is that he died in 1937!

jakejonesiv · 02-06-2006, 10:22 AM

Quote:

"nor was there any mercy showed either to
infants, or to the aged, or to the weaker sex;
insomuch that although the king sent about and desired
them to spare the people, nobody could be persuaded to
withhold their right hand from slaughter, but they
slew people of all ages, like madmen." Josephus, _The Wars of the Jews_, Book 1, Chapter 18, 2.

“… nor was there any mercy showed either to infants…�?
It is significant that Herod’s slaughter of the infants occurred in 37 BCE rather than the alleged gospel act attributed to the very same Herod in about 4 BCE (Matt 2:16). Matthew just cribbed it from Josephus and moved it to the end of Herod's reign.

Jake Jones IV

Toto · 02-06-2006, 11:41 AM

The book referred to above is Machen's Christianity and Liberalism. Other works can be found in links here:

The Importance of Christian Scholarship

The Atonement

History and Faith

Quote:

The student of the New Testament should be primarily an historian. The centre and core of all the Bible is history. Everything else that the Bible contains is fitted into an historical framework and leads up to an historical climax. The Bible is primarily a record of events.

The Liberal Response

That assertion will not pass unchallenged. The modern Church is impatient of history. History, we are told, is a dead thing. Let us forget the Amalekites, and fight the enemies that are at our doors. The true essence of the Bible is to be found in eternal ideas; history is merely the form in which those ideas are expressed.

They say that it makes no difference whether the history is real or fictitious; in either case, the ideas are the same. It makes no difference whether Abraham was an historical personage or a myth; in either case his life is an inspiring example of faith. It makes no difference whether Moses was really a mediator between God and Israel; in any case the record of Sinai embodies the idea of a covenant between God and His people. It makes no difference whether Jesus really lived and died and rose again as He is declared to have done in the Gospels; in any case the Gospel picture, be it ideal or be it history, is an encouragement to filial piety.

In this way, religion has been made independent, as is thought, of the uncertainties of historical research. The separation of Christianity from history has been a great concern of modern theology. It has been an inspiring attempt. But it has been a failure.

The Conservative Reply

Give up history and you can retain some things. You can retain a belief in God. But philosophical theism has never been a powerful force in the world. You can retain a lofty ethical ideal. But be perfectly clear about one point you can never retain a gospel.

For gospel means ‘good news’, tidings, information about something that has happened. In other words, it means history. A gospel independent of history is simply a contradiction in terms.

We are shut up in this world as in a beleaguered camp. Dismayed by the stern facts of life, we are urged by the modern preacher to have courage. Let us treat God as our Father; they say, let us continue bravely in the battle of life.

But alas, the facts are too plain; those facts which are always with us. The fact of suffering! How do you know that God is all love and kindness? Nature is full of horrors. Human suffering may be unpleasant, but it is real, and God must have something to do with it.

The fact of death! No matter how satisfying the joys of earth, it cannot be denied at least that they will soon depart, and of what use are joys that last but for a day? A span of life; and then, for all of us, blank, unfathomed mystery!

The fact of guilt! What if the condemnation of conscience should be but the foretaste of judgment? What if contact with the infinite should be contact with a dreadful infinity of holiness? What if the inscrutable cause of all things should turn out to be a righteous God?

The fact of sin! The thraldom of habit! This strange subjection to a mysterious power of evil that is leading resistlessly into some unknown abyss!

To these facts the modern preacher responds with exhortation. Make the best of the situation, he says, look on the bright side of life.

Very eloquent, my friend! But alas, you cannot change the facts. The modern preacher offers reflection. The Bible offers more. The Bible offers news. Not reflection on the old, but tidings of something new; not something that can be deduced or something that can be discovered, but something that has happened; not philosophy, but history; not exhortation, but a gospel.

The Bible contains a record of something that has happened, something that puts a new face upon life. What that something is, is told us in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The authority of the Bible should be tested here at the central point. Is the Bible right about Jesus?

The Bible account of Jesus contains mysteries, but the essence of it can be put almost in a word. Jesus of Nazareth was not a product of the world, but a Saviour come from outside the world.

. . .

You can see why the Jesus Myth is such a threat to religious conservatives.

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02-06-2006, 10:00 AM	#25
Christ's Reject Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Scotland, UK Posts: 27	As I said, J. Gresham Machen was the apologeticist that I was recommended to read. I was told to read any of his works. The irony is that he died in 1937!

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