Christianity - synopsis

[_GoodK]

[_GoodK]

[_antishock8]

That's it in a nutshell. I think religious advocates are essentially the same whether it's a 12th Imam, or an enlightened waif sitting underneath a tree... You have to suspend common sense and reason in order to feel that your existence isn't what it is:

Temporary. Meaningless.*

*Note: Doesn't have to be morose and depressing.

[_Droopy]

Goodk, start drinking heavily. Its your one last hope.

[_GoodK]

Goodk, start drinking heavily. Its your one last hope.

One last hope to what... be like you and your domestic partner?

[_GoodK]

[_richardMdBorn]

It's interesting how often in the Old Testament that Gentiles are an important part of God's plan. Where does it say in the Bible that all other religions are completely wrong? I suggest that you read Acts 17:28.

C.S. Lewis wrote

Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn't mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself . . . I like it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even though' I could not say in cold prose 'what it meant'.

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth where the others are men's myth: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'. Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a 'description' of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The 'doctrines' we get out of the true myths are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of the White House. God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Does this amount to a belief in Christianity? At any rate I am now certain (a) That this Christian story is to be approached, in a sense, as I approach the other myths. (b) That it is the most important and full of meaning. I am also nearly certain that it really happened.

http://www.montreat.edu/dking/lewis/MYTH.htm

[_Angus McAwesome]

[_JAK]

It's interesting how often in the Old Testament that Gentiles are an important part of God's plan. Where does it say in the Bible that all other religions are completely wrong? I suggest that you read Acts 17:28.

C.S. Lewis wrote

Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn't mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself . . . I like it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even though' I could not say in cold prose 'what it meant'.

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth where the others are men's myth: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'. Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a 'description' of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The 'doctrines' we get out of the true myths are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of the White House. God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Does this amount to a belief in Christianity? At any rate I am now certain (a) That this Christian story is to be approached, in a sense, as I approach the other myths. (b) That it is the most important and full of meaning. I am also nearly certain that it really happened.

http://www.montreat.edu/dking/lewis/MYTH.htm

Richard,

You miss the point and points of comments. Religious myths are irrelevant to scientific documentation. They are fiction. Your question: “It's interesting how often in the Old Testament that Gentiles are an important part of God's plan. Where does it say in the Bible that all other religions are completely wrong?”

You assume “God.” You assume “God’s plan.” Your finish is entirely an issue of interpretation with regard to “where does it say in the Bible…” It matters not what various hundreds of interpretations exist with regard to what the Bible says. It says nothing. That is, it is interpreted to mean what the various pundits interpret it to mean who use it for their own religious/political/control purposes.

As for C.S. Lewis, he makes multiple assumptions and assertions in the script you quote. Note: “Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth.” (C.S. Lewis) There is no singular myth here in Christianity as it has evolved over two thousand years. It is not the same today as it was even one thousand years ago. It has been translated from language to language. It has been translated within the same language. It has been manipulated by the power of popes, kings, and emperors. And the most dramatic doctrinal shifts have occurred since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation (1517). So in merely 500 years, the transformations, translations, and interpretations have lead to more than 1,000 groups who call themselves “Christian.”

Biblical writings are ancient and subject to interpretations which superimpose present information available today or manipulate it. Some choose to ignore or deny consensus information. Some choose to select dogma over documentation and doctrine over discovery. C.S. Lewis’s certainty is no more than any other certainty which abandons rational, evidence-based detail of evidence.

[_richardMdBorn]

“Religion The belief that …all those other religions are completely wrong.”

Does anyone seriously assert that this statement is true?