JohnS
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I couldn’t agree more, Jesus’ teachings were not completely revolutionary. Throughout history others have tried to awaken people to the “point” as I like to call it. I like to use Noah’s Ark as an example.
Typically if you are “Christian” you are taught to take this story literally, that Noah actually collected a ridiculous number of animals, two by two, and put them on an enormous boat, and floated around until the water went away.
Now, the fact that flood mythology is not unique to Noah (Epic of Gilgamesh and others) perhaps a regional flood of some kind did occur at some point in time, I won’t argue that, there is no point.
If you take the story literally what do you get? An almighty God eliminated all but one family and a bunch of animals by putting them on a boat? Pointless, but it could scare many into behaving, I’ll give it that.
I see the story as relevant but more so as a metaphor for a humans impact.
In the face of a contrary society an individual dedicated himself to a purpose, whether it would ever rain, he spent years building a boat. (I know plenty of people who wouldn’t inflate a lifeboat on a sinking ship if that had to blow it up with their mouth). The boat wasn’t just for preserving his life, but for preserving life itself. It is a story of perseverance with no rational hope of reward, a story of the impact that one individual can save the world.
That is a powerful story whether it is true or not…true…or…not, the story has the same impact, that is the point. To me the story is pointless and contrary to God if it is literal truth.
Jesus taught in parables, perhaps the most appealing part of his method. Was there ever a prodigal son? Would it matter either way? Too often “Christianity” misses the greater philosophical points while arguing about the pointless, like how much water constitutes a baptism…a sprinkle on the head, no, submerged is the only way, no, gotta be a river, no, gotta be 16, no, 18. The whole time missing the point that it is meant to be a ceremony to display outwardly, the internal change in consciousness marking a re-birth of intention. But all that doesn’t matter, just make sure you get the right water…some is better than others.
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Danny Ray
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“Usefulness is not impaired by imperfections. You can drink from a chipped cup.”-Greta Nagel
Being new to the deist worldview, these ideas I raise as balloons of opinion maybe totally off base, so feel free to shoot holes in them at will.
As one liberated from Christian fundamentalism, reading Paine’s “The Age of Reason” was very enlightening. However, I wonder if Paine threw the proverbial “baby out with the bathwater”? I wholeheartedly agree that reason trumps revelation, yet I wonder if the world’s established religions have something to offer the Deist? Thomas Jefferson himself seems to have acknowledged the worth of Christian insights by creating “The Jefferson Bible.” I posit there is still a precious baby hidden among the profuse bathwater of revealed religions. With his penknife, Jefferson tried to pare the mythological revealed aspects of Christian scripture away from the core rational philosophies of Jesus. As deists attempting to more deeply understand God, is it apropos to do the same with all religions?
In several world religions such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, the founding leader was actually teaching philosophical principles toward living the good life. In retrospect, some feel it is doubtful these leaders expected their ideas to be religionized. In a process especially common in Egyptian and Roman times, philosophical sages were posthumously deified in a practice theologians refer to as “Apotheosis”. Any leader worth their spiritual weight was ultimately considered to be the product of a God or Goddess. This theological spin was a quite common technique to enhance respect for an individual and their ideas. Historically and surprisingly to many, early Christianities did not all uniformly promote Jesus as the son of God. How do we know some of Jesus followers did not mimic the cultural trend and try to enhance their leader’s credibility through a similar deification process?
I tend to agree with Jefferson’s pen-knife editing efforts of the New Testament which indicate he believed much can still be learned from Jesus on how to best live the God-centered life. Unfortunately the reasonable and rational sacred core of all religions has been obscured with added accumulated layers of what could be called:
1) ritualistic effluvium,
2) traditionalistic detritus,
3) legendary accretions,
4) or mythological guano.
But you know what? Dung burns! By holding the candle of reason as a purifying flame to our beliefs we can clean up our worldviews of the BS. To me that is a primary goal of the Deist! As Mark Twain would say: -”I must studiously and faithfully unlearn a great many things I have somehow absorbed.”
As God-seeking deists, I propose the value in using a de-mythologizing process of separating out the baby from the bathwater when studying the theistic religions. Even though every religion has chips of imperfection, if approached with an open mind covered by the screen of reason, much can be siphoned.
(Originally posted as a comment on Unified Deism’s site)
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