151. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95167 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 1:38 pm

Steve, I know Julius Caesar was worshipped as God. You don't need to point out to me that the evidence that this was so is vast. Woe betide anyone who did not fall in line with that! Are you asking me to show you evidence that Jesus was worshipped as God my more people than Caesar was? That is evidently not the case. The number of Christian worshippers was far fewer. So what? What does that prove? What I am trying to show you that the worship of Jesus as God goes right back to Christian origins, whatever the number of believers compared with Caesar worshippers.

By the way, it has always been a characteristic feature of dictators that they set themselves up as gods, demanding the worship of their subjects: The Führer, il Duce, Stalin, Mao and so on and so forth. That certainly does not prove that they were who they claimed to be, just as the fact that Jesus was worshipped as God does not prove that he was God. That is not one of the proofs of his deity.

152. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95162 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 1:18 pm

In my case it was. But that proves nothing. I could name many Christians who came to faith later in life, and whose backgound and upbringing was entirely secular. You seem to be falling into a kind of behaviourist fallacy.

153. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95153 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 1:09 pm

So what, monoape? What does that prove? In any case, you'd be surprised at the number of Christian believers there are in Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, India and China, not to mention Africa. In fact the number of Christians in many of these places is vastly greater (in percentage terms) than the number of Christians in the UK. Probably as many as 100 million in China, and growing. Many of these people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ without the intervention of Western missionaries, which is quite a serious percentage of the population don't you think? So if I'd been born in China ... who knows?

154. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95150 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 1:01 pm

"A) [Phil 2:5-8 N.A.S.]:

(v. 5) "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

(v. 6) Who, although He subsisted in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

(v. 7) but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men.

(v. 8) And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Steve, this quote, the words of a Christian hymn already being sung in Christian communities BEFORE Paul wrote this letter, shows unequivocally that Jesus was being worshipped as God in the 40s and 50s AD

155. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95129 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 12:11 pm

djspideyspinster. Gary Habermas is a very able scholar. I wonder how much ice his scholarship will cut on this site. I sense a "genetic fallacy" in the making. Watch this space!

156. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95119 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 11:37 am

Steve, you might be interested in this.

http://www.annerice.com/AnneRice-ColmesInterview.wav

157. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #95118 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 11:35 am

Have a look at this Steve


http://www.annerice.com/AnneRice-ColmesInterview.wav

158. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95112 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 11:18 am

Anne Rice has become a Christian. Her book on Jesus as a child has been well received by critics. But it is also worth noting that to write the book she immersed herself in cutting edge New Testament scholarship. Her book largely arose out of that quest.

She has not repented of her vampire phase. She recently was present at and celebrates on her website the première of the musical based on one of her vampire characters. She even says that her vampire books were actually an integral part of her search for God. The Vampire is like a mirror-image, an antithesis of Christ: killing his victims by drawing their blood and rendering them like himself, as opposed to Christ quickening (giving life to) those he calls by giving them his blood (allowing his blood to be drawn for them) and rendering them like himself.

159. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95101 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 10:54 am

Yes Steve. Anne Rice's book is called "Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt"

Maybe my latest answer to Bonzai goes some of the way towards answering your other question. I could add a comment about the nature of the two claims to "divinity", and what became of those who made them, and how they set about asserting these claims. For 300 years or so Christians were hounded by the Roman state for not offering their allegiance to Caesar, the self-appointed Son of God, and for claiming that Jesus was who Caesar claimed to be. The arrival of Costantine on the scene actually did not help much, in the long term (though other Christians would dispute this). It is sometimes claimed that Christians now believe Jesus is the Son of God because of the Council of Nicea convened by Constantine. That is not true. The Council of Nicea merely gave the imperial stamp to a conviction that had been central to Christianity since the start (witnesss the letters of Paul fom c50 AD to c66 and the preaching of Peter in Jerusalem at Pentecost), even though it had come under pressure from sundry Gnostic creeds from the end of the 1st century.

160. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95099 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 10:52 am

You're right of course Bonzai. Josephus was not one of Jesus' followers and he probably did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, so he wouldn't have recorded him as such, would he? The credibility of his claims can hardly be made to depend on the word of witnesses he did not believe him to be who he claimed to be! Many of his contemporaries did not believe him to be the Messiah or the Son of God, and they had him arrested and executed for so claiming. The credibility of his claims lies rather in the coherence of his words (including his claims), the congruence between his words and his actions, the way he naturally showed the all-embracing breadth of the Kingdom that he had come to inaugurate. No Jew would have invented a Messiah who lashed out as he did at the religious establishment or welcomed those who were beyond the margins of acceptable society. And the resurrection is the ultimate vindication of his claims to be the King of this new Kingdom that God was bringing about on the earth. Remember that took his followers by surprise too, so they didn't have a "theology of the resurrection" that they could quickly enact around this figure that they were going to "reinvent" out of the shadowy form of an insignificant itinerrant preacher.

161. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95089 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 10:34 am

"Jesus had a brother James? I wonder if he ever got jealous that his father was playing favourites. I mean that's a pretty tough gig. "So James, your telling me you want to be a column builder eh? Why can't you be more like your brother... being a god not good enough for you is it?"

Ha ha. I like it Elli! Actually, Anne Rice has written a lovely novel where she brings Jesus' childhood to life, and in fact dramatises this sibling tension. I recommend it

162. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95086 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 10:29 am

Your right about my committing the genetic fallacy Monoape. We need to engage with the content not with the medium. It reminds me of those who dismiss ID per se because some of its proponents are uneducated fundamentalists.

163. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95077 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 10:12 am

Steve, good question. Paul was not a contemporary in the sense that he was not one of Jesus' followers - not one of the twelve. But he was a contemporary in terms of time frame. After his conversion he became one of the same group as Peter and James (Jesus' brother) and all the rest. So some of his letters are at no more than 2 decades remove. Like someone now giving an account of the start of the peace process in Northern Ireland, on the basis of his or her association with Trimble or Hume. And besides, Paul became a member of a group made up almost wholly of eye-witnesses. He himself was an eye-witness of the resurrection if you give any credence to the Lucan account of Jesus' post mortem appearance to him on the Damascus road. It would have been very dificult for Paul to get away with a deliberate fabrication, given his association with James (Jesus' own brother) and with the rest of the Jerusalem church. It would have been likewise impossible for the Jerusalem church to get away with a fabarication given the degree of the opposition their preaching faced. All the authorities would have needed would have been to provide the people with a clear demonsration that the whole thing had been invented. That the Jesus they revered was never anything more than an itinerrant preacher!

164. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95063 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 9:25 am

Steve, therein in act lies the challenge that Jesus indircetly issued to Caesar, as Paul later points out in Romans. "You think you are the Son of God. You are not - I am!". By entering Jerusalem as he did, by going into the temple he was, in a sense, claiming possession of the "throne" at the centre of the holy of holies he was claiming that the Kingdom of God had come with himself as King, that the prophecies about the Kingdom of God were being fulfilled right in front of them. He knew that by doing that he would be bringing upon himself the wrath of Rome, not only of the Jewis authorities - there wasn't room or two kingdoms in the Roman territories. Rome had a pretty brutal way of dealing with what they perceived as sedition. That's how the Jewish leaders got the Romans on their side: "If you don't deal with this guy you'll be no friend of Caesar's" they said to Pilate. And in a sense they were right. Caesar, for the reasons you pointed out, could brook no rivalry.

165. The Pagan Christ

Comment #95048 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 8:41 am

I'm sorry but I'm not going to let you get away with this monoape.

This is the quote from Josephus in question. It is taken from his Jewish Antiquities.

"3.3 Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, IF IT BE LAWFUL TO CALL HIM A MAN; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; FOR HE APPEARED TO THEM ALIVE ON THE THIRD DAY; AS THE DIVINE PROPHETS HAD FORETOLD THESE AND TEN THOUSAND OTHER THINGS CONCERNING HIM. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

If you check this out you will find that the parts of the quote that I have rewritten in block capitals were indeed a 4th century interpolation. Nevertheless the consensus is that the rest of the text was indeed written by Jsephus.

The main support for the authenticity of the passage as having been written by Josephus comes from another of the Antiquities - namely nº 20.9.1:
"He (Ananus) concened the council of judges and brought before it the brother of Jesus - the one called the "Christ" - whose name was James, and certain others. But those of the city considered to be the most fair-minded and strict concerning the laws were offended at this and sent to the king secretly urging him to command Ananus to take such actions no longer".

For a number of reasons scholars do not doubt the authenticity of this second passage. The point of the text is not to reflect on who Jesus or his followers were but to report on the reasons for Ananus having been deposed as High Priest. There is therefore nothing specifically Christian about it. It seems safe to assume that this second passage presupposes an earlier reference to Jesus in the Antiquities. Most scholars believe the earlier reference to be the one earlier cited from Antiquities 18.

You should know bay now that Wikipedia articles have to be taken with a barrel or two of salt. I'm sure that if I had used Wikipedia to support any of my points you would have quite ightly told me the same.

166. The Pagan Christ

Comment #94982 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 5:22 am

It is sooooo typical of contributors to these threads to airbruch out of existence that which it is inconvenient to take on bard. As I hinted in my earlier "preemptive" contribution, this reaction does not in the least surprise me. It is the well-worn strategy o historical revisionism. Take David Irvine for example.

167. Former Evangelical Minister Has a New Message: Jesus Hearts Darwin

Comment #94885 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 12:49 am

I was just about to make the same point Bonzai, but you beat me to it. To be fair though, he is not stating his own position at that point. I understand him to be saying that this transcendent self-sufficient, eternally existing reality whom Christians (probably including himself) believe to be the God of the Bible is called by many other names in other faiths and belief systems. I don't think he is saying that it doesn't matter what or who you call him her or it. For the atheist the eternally existing reality whose coming into existence requires no explanation is matter+energy, or the universe.

I really think this guy might be onto something. But I think it might be as much of a a mistake for Christians to uncritically embrace evolution as a scientific paradigm as it is to embrace Intelligent Design or Big Bang consmology. Who knows how much mileage there is in these paradigms? The bottom line is that nothing has yet emerged that rules out the existence of a Creator God who somehow breathed or spoke the whole shabang into existence.

168. The Pagan Christ

Comment #94883 by ADH on December 7, 2007 at 12:40 am

I haven't had the pleasure of reading this book yet, but just before everyone starts saying: "there you are you see, Christianity is not based on a historical event at all - it's just cobbling together of pre-Christian pagan myths!" maybe it would not be a bad idea to check out this link.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/copycatwho2.html

169. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94776 by ADH on December 6, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Sorry Steve, I'm not trying to evade your question. Just got bogged down in other questions. As regards my understanding of the Bible, I don't claim to have it all taped. I know that many very sincere Christians disagree with my position at a number of points. As Paul said, "now we see in a glass darkly", and "now we know in part". My knowledge is partial at best. I believe that it was for good reasons that God left Scripture with us to tease out the meaning from it, making the best and most responsible use we can of our rational faculties and interpretive skills. I believe He is present within Christian communitites and in the mind of the individual believer in the form of the Holy Spirit (the Comforter and the Interpreter who was promised to the Church by Christ Himself). That does not mean that all Christians arrive at the same conclusions about everything. Some of our misinterpretations are culpable: the result of lazy hermeneutics or of self interest. We could call that the human factor I suppose, and even the most brilliant Christian minds, the most God-fearing believers and the most earnest seekers after truth are susceptible to getting things wrong. But I believe, with the reformers (whom I don't always agree with - the human factor again) that Scripture is "perspicacious", that is that the meaning contained within it, the thought flow running through the whole and the meaning that I need to engage with in each of the parts is available to the mind that really wants to receive it. It is in this sense that God speaks through Scripture. It is in this sense that it is the Word of God. Now as I said, that does not mean that I have to arrive at the same conclusions as other believers in every detail. Manifestly that is not the case. I respect other readings, provided they are readings which take the text seriously as really having been inspired by God and intended for our "nurture" and growth, rather than as amunition for internicene warfare, or as a series of proof-texts ready to be wrenched out of context and balndished in defense of every absurdity under the sun.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the central narrative leit motif running through the whole corpus, from Genesis to Revelation. When we lose sight of that it is easy to get lost amid the endless geneologies and battles and journeys hither and tither. But Jesus Christ does give cohesion to the whole.

I could go on, and on, and on, but I'm sure you don't want that so I'll shut up.

Feel free to keep asking

170. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94634 by ADH on December 6, 2007 at 5:56 am

Hello Goldy,

You've asked me some very good questions. I realise that I have left loose threads. That comes from trying to telescope these huge matters into a single post. Your and Bonzai's insights into Chinese history are fascinating. Thank you.

I need to give your questions some thought. I promise that, if you really want to hear my answers, I will address them. I have to sign off for a few days.

Bye for now.

171. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94451 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 5:08 pm

Thank you for correcting my spelling and sorting some of my facts out Goldy. It's now 2.10 in the morning here, and I'm going a bit ga ga (which for many of you I guess I have always been anyway). So I'm going to sign off here.

Bye for now

172. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94446 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 5:02 pm

Steve, I'm not saying that there are no laws in the Bible for us to obey. What I am saying is that the Bible is not a checklist of the things that we have to get right in order to be sure of a place in heaven. It is the story of our creation, our fall into a state of rebellion (and by the way that truth is not incompatible with the theory of eveolution) and our possible redemption through faith (ie trust - it's a relational word) in Jesus Christ. Thereafter there will necessarily follow a commitment to obey God. And it is Scripture that teaches us, in the context of a relationship (a newly-recovered sonship) what obedience means and what choices and sacrifices have to be made. But there is nothing slavish about it, even though from the moment of that faith-act onwards we are not our own (or we realise that we never were). That clearly has implications. But it is not for me to tell anyone what these implications are specifically.

Personally my view is that th term marriage should be reserved specifically for the relationship between husband and wife - that it is heterosexual. I'm sorry if that turns me into a homophobe in your eyes. I am just telling you as straightforwardly as I can what my own view is. But as I say, it is not for me to tell anyone how to run their lives.

173. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94438 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 4:46 pm

Steve and Goldy, the Bible tells our story, not that of all the civilisations that there have ever been on the planet. I believe that all of mankind will be judged by Jesus Christ (that is Orthodox Christianity, and I accept it). But I believe that all of humanity will be judged in the light of their response to God's revelation of himself to them in whatever terms that revelation might have occurred. I have no idea how that will happen in the sense that the terms on which God is going to judge people for whom the Bible, and specifically the story of the incarnation, did not or does not exist necessarily fall outside the Biblical narrative: the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, the Persians, the Chinese subjects of Genghis Khan or Mao Tse Tung. In his speech to the Epicureans and Stoics in Athens the apostle Paul said (quoting a Greek poet) "we are His Offspring" and "He is not far from every one of us".

But I believe that God is the embodiment of Justice, the source of our very conception of justice. Therefore justice will be done. No one will be left without an opportunity to be right with Him, and to be forgiven (and governed, let it be said) by Him - if they want it.

174. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94432 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 4:30 pm

Steve, if I am right (which I obviously believe) then we do need to confront what the gospel says and interpret it. I am not going to be dogmatic, but I can be insistent about this. Before you settle for the "mere" intuition and interchange of ideas with other thinking human beings (which I also value highly by the way) I suggest that you put the gospels into the mix too - that you allow yourself to be challenged by it, even if you then end up dismissing it. I'm not preaching at you or at anyone else here. The gospels by the way are not a rule book, as I said earlier, but a story - our story. They are not a list of what we have to get right in order to make it in. That idea would give rise to pride and superiority, whic would actually leave us worse off than before we started! They tell the story of God reaching down right into the mess of our world, subjecting himself to human brutality and injustice, and on that basis, promising us (and eventually the planet itself) a whole new start.

175. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94425 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 4:15 pm

Goldy, those who have heard about what God has done and is doing through Jesus Christ must come face to face with him. I have nothing to say about those who haven't heard. God will obviously bring all the others you mention, and many more besides, face to face with himself on different terms. I have no idea how that happens.

176. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94421 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 4:11 pm

"Do you think those who read this will just accept it as true because you state it?"

Certainly not Walk, and least of all on this site. It is my opinion, and I've thought about it a great deal. But I'm relaxed about people here not agreeing with me. I din't expect that anyone would. But you are giving me an opportunity to say what I think (in fact you get angree with mewhen I don't answer your questions) so there it is. Take it or leave it.

177. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94417 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 4:06 pm

"Whatever we do we will never have autonomy, we will always be victim to some power or other outside ourselves. So we might as well submit ourselves to the Christian God, he's the best!"

I agree with the first sentence. The second is a bit of an over-simplification. It's not that "he's the best!" That makes the Christian gospel sound like an advertising campaign. The point is that we are already deeply enslaved to our own ego, and the irony is that in being so we think we are free - that no one has any claims on us. But thinking like that actually confirms the extent to which we are enslaved. It's not that the Christian God is the best of all possible slave-drivers. He actually liberates us from slavery to ourselves, from the prison of our own ego, and from all the other slave drivers that we mistakenly imagine have no claims on us: fashion, media-manipulation, religion indeed (even the "Christian religion - or rather "Christian" religiosity , ritual or legalism).

178. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94409 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 3:57 pm

"You are welcome to give us ADH's view of what Christ wanted, but why should we believe you? What authority and evidence can you provide that you have the true measure of Christ's intentions?"

It's not for me to tell anyone what Christ wanted. But I believe that in the gospels that is available for all to read. Everyone must come to their own conclusions, and will be judged accordingly. I'm not going to pronounce on homosexuality or the like (save to say that my own views are conservaitive - but it's not for me to tell other people, Christian or otherwise, what they have to believe about it. I have enormous respect for Desmond Tutu and his caorageous stand against Apartheid. Do I disagree with him over homosexuality and maybe a lot of other matters social and theological? Probably. So be it. My respect for him is unabated. I can put forward my case, and then leave it at that. I may be wrong.

But for me the bottom line is this: each of us at some point must come face to face with Jesus Christ. It's up to each of us how we decide what to do with that, or whether to do anything with it. So as I say, I'm not in a position to tell anyone what Christ wants of them, and I'm not going to try. If you want to know, it's all written down. So we're not going to cross swords over that one.

179. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94400 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 3:41 pm

"We don't have any autonomy you say? That sounds like Sartrean bad faith, I think we do and that it is "spiritually" valuable."

BaonOchs, it only seems like Sartrean bad faith if you are a existentialist, holding the view that we are deined by our choices and that these choices are morally neutral. I am not ruling out choice, by the way. We have no choice but to follow, but we can choose our master. Choosing to do it "my way" as Frank Sinatra put it is not actually an option. We may think we are acting autonomously, but sooner or later we realise that we are not. That, I believe, is integral to the human condition. I can't help thinking of King Lear in that regard (and specifically Cordelia as opposed to Regan and Goneril), but that's another matter which it would be better not to get into now.

180. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94382 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 2:37 pm

"ADH [comment 86] I rarely here(read) such a clear statement of exactly where I think christianity has gone wrong."

BarinOchs, I suspect you are referring to words like "follow" and "serve". That is where I stand. But that does not mean there is anything slavish about the Christian faith. I know there are a lot of people here who see "following Christ" as moronic personality-cramping, uniformity. Quite the opposite! It is true that some Christian churches and leaders insist on the kind of conformity that Christ never demanded. When he liberated the woman caught in adultery from her hypocritical religious persecutors he didn't present her with a rule book. All he said was: "I don't condemn you - go your way and don't sin again". OK, there was a condition here. But these conditions are life-enhancing, not life-diminsihing. The "rule books" are the work of the religious power-hungry "pharisees" of every age. They are not content with God having the sole right to preside over a person's conscience and they take it on themselves to BE the conscience of the individual. This is not the inevitable behaviour of Christian leaders, but it is a very strong temptation. But neither is it the preserve of CHRISTIAN leaders. The world (not only the church) is replete with tin-pot dictators who are bent on playing God in the lives of thier subjects.

As Bob Dylan put it: "You've got to serve somebody! It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody".

The notion of personal autonomy is actually a myth.

181. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94376 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 2:07 pm

By the way Walk, I have written elsewhere on hell and eternal punishment. I don't want to get into it again here as it would throw the thread off course.

182. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94375 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 1:58 pm

I'm learning a lot from you guys!

183. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94374 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 1:55 pm

Thank you for that Bonzai. It was most enlightening. I seriously mean that - I appreciate your taking the time to provide this explanation of how philospohical tradition and folk Buddhism interact with each other. None of it alters the point that I was making though. The disbelieving monks are still a minority, and it is actually rapacious of then not to believe but at the same time to let the "unenlightened" remain within their disbelief in order that they will keep coughing up. The Buddhist equivalent of the "tele-evangelist" who fleeces the gullible masses and probably believes much more in the rices of this world than in those of the next.

184. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94367 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 1:35 pm

Walk, forgiveness is complete and absolute. But Jesus (or God through him) does not force himself on anyone, not does he force forgiveness on those who don't want anything to do with it.

185. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94347 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 12:04 pm

Actually Steve, philosophical stress-relieving Buddhism and a-miracle-a-day, emotion-driven, prosperity-now "Christianity" have several features in common. They both focus on the "what does religion do for me?" question. They tend to use religion to satisfy their existential needs in the here and now, rather than follow and serve. Given a choice between the latter variety of Christianity and the former variety of Buddhism, I'd go for the former. But both actually miss the point. I am a Christian not because it is existentially satisfying, because it brings relief from suffering or because through prayer I can have a better sex tife or a bigger bank balance. I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that what he said about the human condition and destiny was and is the truth. I (hope I) would continue to believe that even if it did not bring me any emotional highs and and even though my bank balance remains unaffected by prayer. Contrary to what a lot of Christians seem to believe, the Christian faith is not just another quick-fix. It is not a highway to a higher plane of existence, free of fear, pain, stess, worry and loss.

I am aware that philosophical Buddhism (following the example of the Buddha) confronts suffering in order to attain equilibrium in the face of it. But the road to relief from suffering, or triumph over it, namely the anihilation of desire, amounts to the liquidation of the self - because the self without desire is inconceivable. Nevertheless, I recognise that there is a kind of nobility in the search for equilibrium on such terms, and those who accept the terms have my utmost admiration. But I am not sure that it is possible or even "desirable"· to accept terms like these. Forgive me if I am misrepresenting Buddhism. As I say however, the lifestyle that results from this quest is more deserving of my admration than that of so-called Christians who are, consciously or unconsciously, using the Christian faith for self-agrandisement and to achieve some kind of magical relief from all the aches and pains of their existence.

186. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94221 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 3:41 am

"I find it an amusing constrast to Western ideas. Whereas many here say that theism is useful even if false, Buddhism says theism is useless even if true!"

What Christians say to this is that if theism is true, then that is what really matters, whether or not it is useful. Buddhism's focus and its appeal for Westerners lies in its usefulness. For many punters it is a chic and sophisticated form of stress-relief. On that basis, it does not take long for the "meme" to propagate itself.

187. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94220 by ADH on December 5, 2007 at 3:37 am

"Actually no; if Buddhists pray it is a form of contemplation, it is not to petition external forces or beings."

Steve, check this out:

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/livewire/politics_society/chinatown_shrine/

And this is only Cinatown in NYC. Imagine what it must be like in the average neighbourhood in any Chinese city where Buddhism happens to prevail.

Buddhism is bursting with religious ritual, for all its philosophical atheism. Its pantheon is sometimes likened to the ancient Greek pantheon. OK, they are not praying to a single transcendent being but they are praying to transcendent beings, at least in the sense that they are praying to beings who are perceived to transcend their limitations. Its not unlike the celebrity pantheons of Western secularist society. As Chesterton said, "when people stop believing in God, they don't beleve in nothing ... they beleve in aything."

We are religious beings and we need to invoke that which transcends us. I realise that on this mssage board there are many noble exceptions to the rule ... of course.

188. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94158 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 11:37 pm

"In a Buddhist story the Buddha mocked a particularly stupid and arrogant god who thought that he was the creator of everything."

Bonzai, this would indeed be delusional on the part of the said deity, unless it happened to be true. I think his mockery was directed at the hinduism that he had been brought up in with its creator deity and its antithetical destroyer deity. In any case his mockery says nothing about the truth value of such a claim. Does the mockery levelled at evolution by American fundamentalists actually diminish its claim to be a true paradigm? Mockery is often (though not always) a reflection of a failure to understand. Buddha, for all his virtues, was not infallible.

189. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94154 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 11:25 pm

Downunder, you have given me a lot to think about in that excellent question. I'm going to take some time over it because I don't want to deliver a pat answer. Bear with me.

190. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94151 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 11:21 pm

"No, they aren't. Buddhists either don't believe in God or Gods, or believe that Gods are irrelevant. They number over a billion."

Sorry Steve but I have to challenge that. Buddhism as a philosophy is atheistic, and of course Buddhists for whom it is a philosophy are atheists. But if you visit any Buddhist country you will find that popular, grass-roots, folk-religion is very far from being atheistic. People throng into and around shrines and temples and pray to the deities that happen to be enshined there. They are every bit as religious as the Hindu masses who flock to the Ganges for their purifying bath in "holy" water. The atheists among the said Buddhists are actually very few.

191. Chimps beat humans in memory test

Comment #94008 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 3:19 pm

"Ever? How can you be so sure about that? Ever is a very long time. Can you absolutely exclude that in say 1000 years from now a computer could become self conscious?"

What I envisage, birthmachinebaby, is a world in which virtually all the cognition required to make things operate efficiently will be carried out by cognively endowed computers. Whether "self-consciousness" in the sense in which we humans are self-conscious will ever be available to them is debatable. It is a scary scenario. As a student of mine pointed out the other day, when computers ever have that degree of power and control our self-consciousness and our corresponding capacity or empathy and altruism will be our greatest weakness, and our last defense.

192. Chimps beat humans in memory test

Comment #94000 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:56 pm

Cognition, by the way, is not (as I see it) the same as reasoning.

193. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #93996 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:42 pm

"Hitchens had a very good point about the use of non-idolatry and how it can morph into another form of idolatry."

I agree wholeheartedly with CH here. What I find a bit puzzling is an atheist picking a quarrel with Muslims on the grounds of idolatry!! Idolatry is "false worship" and implies that there is a "true worship" which it is a perversion or distortion of.That's why I agree with him, but I ind it strange to ind myself agreeing with Hitchens on that point.

194. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #93994 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:35 pm

"Stop distancing yourself from the rest of humanity by labelling yourself as a (insert religion here)."


Actually, I have to point out that atheists are a tiny minority when it comes to "the rest of mankind". The enlightened few no doubt, but few none the less. Doesn't prove them wrong of course, but that's another subject ...

195. Chimps beat humans in memory test

Comment #93987 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:27 pm

So can computers perform cognitive tasks, and they are getting better and better to the point were they will conceivably soon be able to programme indescribably more complex software without any human intervention. That does not make computers human, and neiher will they ever be. There is more to the human mind than cognition. It is not cognition that distinguishes us from animals or computers. It is (among other things) free choice, including moral choice.

196. Chimps beat humans in memory test

Comment #93979 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:17 pm

"Young chimps outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese scientists.

The tasks involved remembering the location of numbers on a screen, and correctly recalling the sequence.

The findings, published in Current Biology, suggest we may have under-estimated the intelligence of our closest living relatives."

I don't see what all the fuss is about. Bats can see in the dark, and we can't. Dolphins can echoloct, and we can't, dogs can ind their way home over miles of uncharted territory, and we can't. So what's the big deal?

197. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #93933 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 1:24 pm

Sorry if anyone took offence at my "nigger in the woodpile expression". No racist animosity intended. I was referring to myself as the nigger in the woodpile!

OK I've gone over the top with some of my sarcasm. Actually I have to confess to enjoying sarcasm immensely. Sorry again if it causes offense. I can't promise not to indulge in it again, but I'll try not to overdo it.

I'm perfectly prepared to accept the rules of combat. I'm not here to throw Scripture at anyone, though if asked to show where the Bible teaches this that or t'other I shall have to oblige. I also have to say that my worldview is rooted in my understanding of Scripture, so I can't promise not to make references to it.

I also have to say that if I seem not to be answering questions my silence could be due to the fact that I am working. I have not masteres the art of multi-tasking to the extent of being able to be in two places at the same time. Though I'm working on it ...

I know that I will exacerbate many of you enormously. We have diametrically opposed worldviews, so I guess that is to be expected. Please don't take it personally.

Must sign of for the moment. I'll be back!

198. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #93689 by ADH on December 3, 2007 at 11:15 pm

"Keep thinking, but be warned, it could be the undoing of your faith:-)"

I will. And I could address exactly the same words to you! :) :)

199. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #93683 by ADH on December 3, 2007 at 10:51 pm

I find myself agreeing with a great deal of what Hitchens says. This is a book that needed to be brought out. As a Christian I have no doubt whatever that some of the most enlightened and enlightening minds down through the centuries have been the minds of atheists and agnostics, just as an atheist can have no doubt that some of them have been Christian minds. Christians need to engage with writers like those that Hitchens has brought together in this anthology. In another of the talks accessible from this youtube interview he speaks out compellingly in favour of free speech. He says that the voice of the dissident, even if there is only one, must be heard, because hearing alternative views will make the "convinced" less complacent in their convictions. It will make them reexamine the foundations of their own belief (or non belief). Hear hear! This itself is an idea that Christians (and atheists) need to be able to engage with. Maybe they will realise that there may well be at least a grain of truth in the views that they so ardently oppose. I'm sure (from what I've heard) that Hitchens himself is humble enough to realise this, despite his apparent self assurance. I just hope that contributors to this forum are willing to take this view on board. Sometimes this forum seems like such a "hate-fest", with atheists racking their brains to out-do each other in parodying or lambasting faith and its various representatives, knowing that there is no one there (or virtually no one) who is going to spoil their party by speaking up in defense of their prey. All very entertaining I'm sure, but not all that challenging intellectually. It's no better than when Christians get together to tear the stuffing out of their atheistic straw-men. There needs to be the odd "nigger in the woodpile" (sorry about the political incorrectness!). Yet on these forums I always get the impression that dissent is not welcome, theists have no business even listening in, let alone contributing here. I've learnt a lot from you guys. In the spirit of Hitchens' talk, I have found myself having to re-examine my beliefs, and my attitudes towards people who disagree with me. I hope some of you will eventually be able to say at least the same thing.

200. Why debate dogma?

Comment #93296 by ADH on December 2, 2007 at 3:47 pm

CS Lewis was an atheist until the age of 30, mroe or less. Maybe he never was a rationalist. But it was reason, the logical coherence of theism and then the incarnation, that moved him towards a position that he resisted fiercely "until the bitter end". While an atheist he hoped that God did not exist (his "wishful thinking" was moving him in the opposite direction from faith). I guess he wasn't careful enough about what he read. As he said, (please take note - just in case!) "an atheist who wants to remain an atheist cnnot be too careful about what he reads".