(32 votes, average: 4.56 out of 5)
Loading...Since I’ve been making these posts about my experience at Moody Bible Institute, I’ve been getting some reactions from former classmates there. Some of these are in a public forum I’m on. Others have been private communications. A few of these have been kind and heartening. Others … not.
Among the latter, some have told me that they pity me because of where I will end up on the day of judgment. Others have suggested that I changed my theological beliefs because that would help me become famous. Some have expressed both sadness and outrage that I have “led so many people astray.”
So, dealing with these kinds of comments one-by-one, in one post at a time. First, the day of judgment. Well, none of us knows what will happen on the day of judgment, but I think I’m glad none of my classmates has been appointed to be the judge! That hasn’t stopped them from judging in the present, of course, and one would think they would be a bit wary of that, given what Jesus says about such things (Judge not lest you be judged).
My view, of course, is that there is not going to *be* a judgment day, any more than there is going to be a second coming and a rapture and a future millennial kingdom But if there is a God and there is a judgment, I really don’t think that it’s going to involve a Final Exam on theology, with those who get a failing grade being cast into the eternal lake of fire.
Moreover, if there is a God, he….
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The legalistic argument for god being bound by some moral or legal obligation to punish humanity for a transgression fails miserably. If the “price” for failure to believe is eternal torment…then why is Jesus of Nazareth not being tormented FOREVER in Hell? Only that would satisfy the legalistic conceptualization of fair compensation to cover the designated cost of an action. Otherwise the “price” has not been paid and the cost not covered in full. Or…the price is not eternal damnation but simply death…which price WAS covered by his death. Or…it’s all just a bunch of primitive superstition that fails to have any meaning outside of the realm of human understanding. Obviously an all-powerful being would not have such petty emotions as jealousy or anger. Only a god imagined by jealous and angry human beings.
As I once told someone recently who seemed concerned about my afterlife:
“If one day I find myself standing before an unanticipated ‘judgement throne’ with the requirement that I explain my lack of faith, I will in all humility say that I have lived my life being honest with myself (as well as others). If there had been a shred of evidence for the god who was insisting on my faith, I would happily have believed in him/her….but I was not willing to believe in somebody’s fantasy or made up imaginary friend.”
Actor Stephen Fry, an atheist, was asked what he would say if, in the afterlife, he found himself standing before God. He said, in that case, he, himself, would be asking the questions. “Bone cancer in children, what’s that all about? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? Why should I respect a God…that creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain”
Just a thought…
I wonder what Stephen would say if he discovered that it was the child with bone cancer that was judging him.
It’s not what happens to others that anyone will be judged for. It’s about what happens to you and what you did in those circumstances.
People can make it about God and the way He ran things if they want. If there is an afterlife, I will want to be with people who think and behave like I do. I think that will happen automatically (birds of a feather), but I would hope to be separated from those who don’t. If there are a group of people who judge God as it appears that Stephen Fry wants to do, then that will be fine with me and I’m sure it’ll be fine with him too. Though, being stuck for eternity having to listen to people complain about God and the way He ran things, would be Hell for me.
Love your answers.
Wy these people care.if I’m going burn in hell is none of they business .They don’t care if I’m hungry .so stop worry about my dead body.
They should use they
morality
To do good .,not judge and be more like the Christ that they preach all the time.
Glad if I go to hell least I’ll be in the company of people like me,and not like them.
Hell , heaven is all bull………..
Dr. Ehrman – as usual you put your ideas forth in a clear and concise way, and I identify closely with your position I remain a deist, but believe in a rational ordered higher power. So much of evangelical theology just doesn’t stand up to reason. God has to make sense to me for me to believe in that concept. I am grateful your work has encouraged me to study scriptures in their historical, linguistic, and cultural context so that I can form my own understanding of their meaning and influence in my life. God has given me a good mind, so I use it to make sense of Judeo/Christian teaching as it applies or does not apply to me. Thanks as always for your work.
When I read your first book. I knew I found a home for my beliefs. I’m not as brave about them as you, I pretty much keep them to myself, but they bring me comfort. I think they are too logical for the masses, however!
SINNERS! BEWARE! AWAKE, THE VOICES CALL US! Want to know what Hell is like? A small taste, from James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”: “But this stench is not, horrible though it is, the greatest physical torment to which the damned are subjected.”
But that’s not all. How long will you be there? Forever! Eternally! What is eternity? Don’t ask. But if you must know, Joyce provides the answer in the same book:
“What must it be, then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell forever? Forever! For all eternity! Not for a year or an age but forever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness, and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of air. And imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all. Yet at the end of that immense stretch time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been carried all away again grain by grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals – at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not even one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time, there mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would have scarcely begun.”
I had heard that analogy in high school — but it was unattributed! Thanks.
Nobody knows what hell is like. Nobody! If you believe another person’s description of hell, I have a bridge to sell to you.
I use to break down thinking my dad who was born into buddhism would go to hell for eternity and would pray and have his name in the sunday prayer requests for god to find him. This was including the notion that living in the US the message of Jesus is everywhere so that means he heard of the good news which in some circles means he rejected it. No longer a christian this view seems absurd.
Once I walked away from christianity and looking back at how much mental gymnastics I had to do to make gods judgement make any sense I can only imagine how you felt after becoming an agnostic.
I think Sam Harris in his debate with William lane craig sums it up in a broad way.
Ok, so God created the cultural isolation of the Hindus, ok. He engineered the circumstance of their deaths in ignorance of revelation, and then he created the penalty for this ignorance, which is an eternity of conscious torment in fire. Ok, on the other hand, on Dr. Craig’s account, your run-of-the-mill serial killer in America, ok, who spent his life raping and torturing children, need only come to God, come to Jesus, on Death Row, and after a final meal of fried chicken, he’s going to spend an eternity in Heaven after death, ok. One thing should be crystal clear to you: This vision of life has absolutely nothing to do with moral accountability.
Sam Harris also said that we might have to nuke the middle east proactively, so I don’t pay much attention to what he says. Oh yes, I know, that was just a philosophical exercise. I know.
Fools are fools, no matter what ‘ism’ they hide behind.
I don’t agree with everything Sam Harris says. I think he is a good debater with many strong points. He has written articles on airport security on who to profile that I don’t agree with. I quoted that 1 part because it relates to the topic which is the threat of judgement and how we view moral accountability in a broad sense.
In a nutshell I would assume most christian’s agree that almost anyone can find forgiveness if they accept Christ’s gift of atonement and salvation when true repentance and contrition are involved. I was just showing how moral accountability loses its meaning on human terms viewed through this lens.
The bit I don’t understand is how you can choose to believe. I can pretend to believe, but that’s obviously different. I just find it baffling.
It seems to me that the fundamentalist evangelical form of Christianity is growing, or at least becoming more vocal, and strongly getting involved in politics. In my 73 years I have never heard so much talk about amending the Constitution to make the United States a “Christian Nation” governed by “Christian Law,” whatever that is. It seems that the progressive churches are not growing as fast as the evangelical groups, yet there is a much greater interest in serious science.
My experience with fundamentalist Christians is that there is no way to have an open serious discussion. Either I hear memorized Bible texts thrown at me or they are not interested in an actual discussion.
It’s very frustrating.
Statistics show that fundamentalist Christianity is shrinking, just at a slower rate than the less extreme forms–which is a problem, to be sure. I’d rather see that trend reversed. I think religion is going to be with us until the last days of our species. You can’t get rid of an idea.
Fundamentalism, Christian, Muslim, or whatever, is an overreaction to modernity. The world around us is changing rapidly–too rapidly in some respects. We’re losing everything that anchored us, and atheism offers little to replace it. It works for people who are educated and relatively prosperous. But even many atheists seem to be in the process of forming the equivalent of a new religion, based on denying the old ones, and even denying Jesus as a historical figure, no matter what heights of irrationality they have to climb to do so.
What other people believe should be sacred to you, as long as they are willing to accept your right to believe differently.
People need to believe in things they can’t prove. We can’t seem to live without doing that. So we have to find a way to have that without using it as a club to hit other people with.
Author Simon Wiesenthal wrote the book THE SUNFLOWER: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness
In this work, he ponders the question of forgiveness. While he was in a Nazi concentration camp, he is asked by a Nazi who repents of his crimes for forgiveness. And the question the book asks is whether such forgiveness should be given. It seems to me the answer to this question is given by something which Wiesenthal himself wrote. He wrote that while it might be possible to forgive someone for an injury done to oneself, one has no right to forgive for others. It is those who have been murdered who need to be requested forgiveness of. But one and one-half – million Jewish children were not given the chance to answer.
From the above, I extract upon that premise this question: What injury has each one of us inflicted upon God that we should need to ask–like a dying Nazi torturer–God’s pardon? Did each of us put Jesus to death? No, the Romans did.
Isn’t the death of Jesus a red herring which skirts the actual problem of Christianity itself?
Isn’t religion simply a scheme to ESCAPE ALL MORAL PUNISHMENT by simply making a verbal profession?
_____________________
QUESTION:
Bart, doesn’t THE THREAT OF JUDGMENT by God upon mankind seems more like a monster from the ID which deflects us from the harm we inflict upon ourselves and others in the collateral damage of living life on planet Earth.
I’m probably not as negative toward Christianity as you; I think it is also a force of real good in the world, and that serious Christian thinkers need to be taken seriously. But yes, with respect to Christianity in its simpler forms, I agree!!
All of which makes perfect sense to rational, good-hearted people.
Hi Bart,
Rightly you shared how God must handle our confessed sin, but how that Christian oppose it.
Quote— “My response is that if I’m supposed to forgive sins, he would probably do that too. They would reply that he will forgive sins, if we believe in his Son. My response is to ask why that’s the rule? Why can’t he just forgive us? I myself don’t require a friend to sacrifice a child before I agree to forgive her!” —End of quote
Dear Bart, I have met exactly the same kind of reactions from Christians. I have for some years been lifting up different traditional stones (to look what´s underneath) and started reviewing and rethinking certain Christian ideas. I am not myself a Jew, but I agree with a Jewish Rabbi I have learned so much from. Zechariah 8:23 says the Jew has something a man from among the nations need. Jesus according to the author of Johns Gospel says “salvation is of the Jews”.
Anyway, I thought I wanted to share my newfound discovery of how to look at the Bible, and what the Bible say about the so called Godhead, and what then could be an optional message, but more often than seldom especially Christian fundamentalists get very terrified, like I had just stepped on their toes, and was then on a mined land. As they have no more arguments, they get personal and very aggressive and sometimes angry, ready to stone me and send me to hell. Often they go on and on, trying to convince me on how wrong I am, and so confused and so far from the truth, .. bl bl bl. Sometimes the contact just abruptly stops and there is no further communication. =o)
So, this is my story just briefly. As I a few years back started researching the Christian faith, to look for right beliefs (if possible), in my search for truth I really began to discover new things. But as I traveled, I also noticed the countryside changed and the background left behind me. I felt like I for each new step came to a new territory. And as I did not know where this would lead me, I seemed to travel backwards, first to the fourth Cent. Then I went back to the very first Cent. I have now gone even further, way back into the Jewish soil. And what I have found really gives me personally a more credible standpoint. Let me give you some credit. Your books has also helped me a lot in my research.
As Christians say you need atonement, with a sacrifice of blood, to be forgiven, I agree with what you said, why not just go directly to God and ask him to forgive (without any mediator)? For the Jew, the sin is not a problem, and there is no need for some kind of atonement. It was not the blood of the animals that was offered, so the idea of a human sacrifice with blood was absolutely forbidden. That is a heathen idea. It´s a no-no for a Jew and is absolutely out of the question.
Some ones conscious sin, can just be confessed from a repenting heart and God both forgives and forgets. The oblivious sins are covered in the deal, and was as a symbolic act before the temple was destroyed, seen in the different kinds of burnt offerings. But, in fact no blood was needed, as it before it was burnt was washed away and only the meat was left.
The Jewish reaction on the Christian hell and there being forever “roasted”, is also very interesting. It´s not something they agree on. Neither is putting Satan on the same level as God. One can just notice so very few times Satan is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, compared to how many times he is mentioned in the NT.
My Best,
Ulf Malmström, Uppsala Sweden
WOW… Great post Bart, you nailed it!!!
My condolences. I have experienced what you are going through. Your decency and kindness to answer though 95% sure to not be heard shows what ‘love’ and ‘truth’ is. IMO.
Hello!
I read somewhere recently that the early Christians were thought to be atheists. Have you come across this notion anywhere? I was curious as to why that belief existed. It seems to me that the very words of Jesus that you shared above are exactly what the Christian message is supposed to be–perhaps with the addition of “get over yourself” like the early monastics seemed to be teaching. I get why they liked their caves in that they got to avoid all the “worldly” bickering about the Final Exam in theology. Sign me up! And I couldn’t agree more that it is not *simple* to just say “I do” when humankind’s ego seems to be steering the great ship through a sea of denominations and interpretations… Frustrating!
Yes, in pagan antiquity Christians were labeled “atheists” because they rejected the “gods” and so they were literally a-theist — apart from the gods.
Hi! Real quick…would the Jews have been considered “atheists” as well then? Or were these particular Christians the gentile converts?
Interesting question. I don’t know if Jews were or not. When Xns were called atheists, most of them were non-Jewish.
Hello again!–totally unrelated question here… I am currently reading your book about the Orthodox corruption of Scripture. I was wondering if the concept of the “real presence” of God in the Eucharist was also a hotly debated concept between the proto-Orthodox and those deemed heretics that would have resulted in any Orthodox massaging of Scripture. It seems to me that it would be fitting that such a massage would occur to ensure an interpretation of real as opposed to “symbolic” body and blood. I’m only halfway through the book, but I’m in a chapter discussing the Gospel of John…a book that in chapter 6 makes a pretty hard case for the “real presence.” I was curious if that chapter has been tampered with over time. ??? Theologically speaking, it would seem that the real presence would line up well with the salvation of Passover (i.e., the Jews were not instructed to eat a “symbol” of the flesh of the lamb), but people clearly argue about this today and I’m assuming they did back then as well?? I’m not sure this book will speak to it, but it’s making me think about the concept. What are your insights? Thanks!
No, I’m afraid that was a much later debate.
Prof Ehrman,
what do you mean when you say *who made the “rule” that if you sin you have to die for ever*?
Isn’t the general view of a christian that God is the one who set the rules of what happens when you sin against him?
I’m not quite sure how you got to the question asking if another being than God setup that rule.
That’s precisely my point. There’s no real option. If there is such a rule, then God must have made it.
DR Ehrman:
God is Love and He is fair…
I see His Love in the creation.
Who has the patent for seeds that sprout into fruit trees and vegetables?
How was water devised?
Who invented the rain clouds?
Who produces the air we breathe?
Who holds the universe together?
Do you believe these things made themselves?
The righteous shall live by faith. I don’t have to see God to understand that He exists.
God will end evil. To God death doesn’t exist. No one dies to him and we are not just a body. Our body is where our spirit dwells and it is not for immorality. All individuals who choose evil and delight themselves in it we’ll have to answer to God. God is the ultimate authority and the head of all authority. God will separate the evil ones from those who by faith have chosen God’s gift of righteousness in Christ.
If anyone chooses not to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead because they think that Jesus said something he didn’t say, then that person will get a chance to meet Jesus in person, and on that day that person may ask the Lord, whether he said such thing…
I believe you’ll meet Jesus one day DR Ehrman, and He will answer all your questions.
We are all going to meet him face to face.
Those of us who have erred in mind will then accept instruction.
You need to see Him to believe in Him.
Blessed is the person who believes yet does not see.
Yes there is a special blessing for the person who does not need to see God to understand that He is Love.
As for the words of God and Jesus, they have been altered and we must extract the precious from the worthless.
As for the matter of sin we will be held accountable with or without the law.
God is merciful and He know all things.
I’ve experienced too many extraordinary things in my life to say there isn’t something more beyond this physical world. In December of last year, an atheist I met through Facebook complained that Christians won’t read anything that is contrary to their beliefs. I took that as a challenge and read every link he sent me, and there were a lot! None of them affected me. He then asked me to read Misquoting Jesus, and I refused. I read everything else he asked me to, but I did not want to read a book by an angry atheist slandering Jesus. He said I wasn’t being fair and the book was not what I imagined, so I gave in. I read it, had mini freak-out over it, and searched for a tc site on FB. I found the New Testament Textual Criticism group and asked them about your book. They had plenty to say about it.
So, you are influential in leading people places.
Sorry they’re giving you the business. Maybe this would be a fun time to go deeper into how limited what the bible says about heaven and hell really is, and how an apocalyptic message about magic warriors living in a city above Jerusalem and traditions of Gehenna became cloud-dwelling harpists and a pit of fire. You touched on it a couple years back (Jan.13,2013)
My favorite part about the evangelical critique of the rest of us is the “Spiritual Marriage” language-if any woman was married to a man as abusive, violent and threatening as Yaweh is presented to be in the Bible, even most of those making the critique would say “you have to get out of that marriage.”
Bravo!
Greetings Bart,
I have read most all your books and as far as I can recall I have never seen you explain the definition of the Greek word “aion” and it’s derivatives. That Greek word has been mistranslated to mean “eternal” or “forever” instead of simply “age” or “age-abiding.” The whole concept of eternal torment has been based on the mistranslation of that Greek word “aion.” Many translations have corrected this error, i.e. Rotherham Emphasised Bible, 1888 Young’s Literal Translation, Concordant Literal Version.
Below are excellent links within the Tentmaker website (http://tentmaker.org/ScholarsCorner.html)
which is devoted to the debunking of the concept of eternal torment.
The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/OriginandHistory.html
“The Greek Word Aion–Aionios Translated Everlasting–Eternal in the Holy Bible”
by Dr. John Wesley Hanson
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Aion_lim.html
Analytical Study of Words
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/asw/index.html
Hope to see some of this material appearing in another book of yours.
Love never fails and mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:13)
Jerry O
Nope, I’ve never dealt with it. Good idea.
Wouldn’t the problem of a mistranslated word such as this beg the question: “When will it be over?”. If eternal isn’t eternal, how long is it?
Unrelated question, but a blog post idea: The NT manuscript tradition is fairly sparse before the fourth century. It is often observed we can nonetheless see earlier traditions of the text from early church father quotations of the NT. Some have noted that most of the NT can be reconstructed from the early church fathers. If one compares the earlier quotations of the church fathers from before the third century with the earliest manuscript tradition of the third and fourth centures, how do they compare, generally?
Good idea. This happens to be the area that I wrote my dissertation on. So maybe I will post on it (if I haven’t already!)
Good job! I just have problems understanding why you have to put so much energy into these kinds of thoughts. I like better, by far, your discourse on Second Thesseloians. Or your understandings about how the canon was selected (by man). But, if you have to go through this–Well, it is interesting. Hope you feel better soon.
Thanks! But I’m feelin’ just fine!
I tend to agree with justjudy6’s impression. More than that, talking about theological aspects trying to show how irrational, illogical and ultimately stupid Christian beliefs are, it has nothing to deal with Christianity in Antiquity and doesn’t provide any positive contribute to anybody. You can see it from reactions here. If I want to read bad polemics, upset people and ill-informed discussions I have Facebook and tons of websites.
I obviously don’t want to defend your old buddies, not at all. If you think that the best answer is a theological discussion about Heaven, Hell, God and Satan, let it be. I’m just concerned by the poor (oversimplified?) theological approach adopted, just to show how illogical, silly and ultimately stupid Christian belief is. I think this goes beyond a straight critique to your old buddies, in a bad way. Some may even think that your convictions about such “stupidity” could influence your scholar books, exactly how it happens to conservative scholars with their theological agenda.
If God wants us to love our enemies, wouldn’t it be just a little bit hypocritical of Him to have His enemies tortured forever? And would having people tortured be an example of treating them the way He would want to be treated? If He really will be watching people being tormented forever, then the words “His mercy endures forever” have no meaning.
And my I point out that in addition to doing this to “enemies” who probably deserve such punishment, this punishment is also given to those who are completely ignorant of any of these beliefs.
Bart Ehrman: My view, of course, is that there is not going to *be* a judgment day
Steefen: Some human beings are reincarnated. People who explore their subconscious give accounts of their life between incarnations. Yes, those people were judged about their life before death.
Can you sincerely walk over to the Psychology Department, talk with professors about:
reincarnation cases,
– Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives by Jim Tucker
– Old Souls: Compelling Evidence from Children Who Remember Past Lives by Tom Schroder
– Patton: Many Lives, Many Battles: General Patton and Reincarnation by Karl Hollenbach
– Kundun: A Biography of the Family of the Dalai Lama by Mary Craig
then Michael Newton’s books and foundation? They are
– Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life between Lives;
– Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life between Lives;
– Memories of the Afterlife: Life between Lives, Stories of Personal Transformation; newtoninstitute.org
and get back to us?
My sense is that most professional psychologists do not believe in reincarnation.
Back when I considered this more seriously, I read several books by the most scholarly person I could find who believed in reincarnation – Ian Stevenson. The stories seemed plausible enough for me, well documented, etc. But eventually I eventually read Mary Roach’s “Spook.” In one chapter she follows one of Dr. Stevenson’s workers on a trip through India, and shows how it’s easy for humans to conform to social pressures and how there’s often a bigger story behind the reincarnation stories. I recommend “Spook” for anyone who’s interested in the phenomena of reincarnation stories. It certainly does not disprove them all, but for me personally, there was a kind of click – “Oh, *that’s* how there could be incredible reincarnation stories with good documentation, but they still might not be true.”
A 2 out of 5 Star Review of Spook found helpful by 28/35 people.
“Let me begin by saying that Mary Roach is an excellent researcher and a deft writer. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she is immature and there is way too much Mary in this book. Reading this book is like spending an afternoon with a precocious 12 year old boy. At first she is somewhat amusing, but quickly becomes ill-mannered, whiny, and rude. By the end of the afternoon, you are quite eager to return the boorish, annoying little brat to her parents. She has a mean streak, and when I say mean I’m talking Ann Coulter-mean. She makes fun of people’s names, looks, dress, and how they talk. (As a researcher, this shows terribly bad form–you do not insult those who have been kind enough to help you write the book). She also an unsettling and frequent habit of including something gross every chance she gets. I lost count of the number of times she digressed into some tangent involving bodily functions. Then she has the nerve to write something like, “It’s always underpants with these guys.” No, Mary, it’s always underpants with YOU. The title of the book is meant to mislead, by the way (I’m sure Mary snickered when the publisher informed her about the chosen subtitle as she knew it would pull in the “suckers.”) The title should actually be “A Skeptic’s Cynical Guide to Wackos who Believe in the Afterlife.” Mary should not be allowed out of her room until she becomes a grown-up.”
The conclusion of skeptics and ridiculers are not reliable. The skeptic and ridiculer is not more scientific than the non-skeptic and non-ridiculer.
You sound sure of your rationalizations and I totally agree with them, with some thanks to your efforts. I hope you feel at peace with your positions.
I am indeed. I hope you are at peace with yours!
If you get to hell before I do, please save me a good seat!
Om. He who is rich in the knowledge of Self does not covet external power or possession. Om.
Amen. May the peace of God keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God. Amen.
I have faith in God but do not define her. I have love for God but call her by no single name. I have faith in you Bart. I have love for you Bart. I can call you by the name Bart but the Atman that you are I call no single name. We will not burn in hell nor walk on streets of gold when we depart this body. My faith is that we have always been Atman always will be Brahman, Allah, God, Atman, ……. I hold faith in God and seek her daily in myself and creation. God bless you Bart. And keep up your good work.
Game of Thrones, tribalism. Other is evil. Perhaps.
I went through a similar thought process while leaving my former religion. Fundamentalists have a faulty moral hierarchy. Jesus laid things out pretty clearly, as you point out. Sorting out morality in the real world is difficult at best and getting the priorities wrong makes it impossible.
I admire your courage in trying to discuss these issues. I have always seen you as one who thinks it is extremely important to critically examine crucial questions and has a passion about helping others do the same: nothing more, nothing less.
I also think it doesn’t makes sense to think that God would condemn so many of us to Hell forever just because we don’t have the correct beliefs about something that happened 2,000 years ago described, by just four authors who were not eyewitnesses writing four or so decades after the described events, in ways that often contradict one another.
I think all of this stirs up so much because people really care about these issues of “ultimate concern.”
Please keep going with blogs on this subject because many of us have encountered similar reactions from those, including spouses, relatives, and friends we care about.
Bart, what this brings to my mind is two very different sayings of Jesus in the gospels. In Mark, Jesus says “Whoever is not against us is for us.” In Matthew, it has become “Whoever is not for me is against me.”
Would the same man really have said both those things? And we know which saying was written down first. We also know that the author Matthew was writing under different circumstances. Circumstances that were more adversarial in their nature.
To me, the true Christian attitude–that I see in many Christians–is the former. All men and women of good will are to be welcomed as allies, treated as brothers and sisters, and perhaps even learned from. This is certainly something I saw in many of the Catholics I grew up with, even though many also showed that other attitude–that those who were not good Catholics were, by definition, against Jesus (that would, of course, include your former classmates at Moody, shocked as they might be to hear it, but then who cares what Papist scum think?). Thomas Merton and others looked for the common threads of belief that united all people–they didn’t try to say they were the only possessors of truth. They wanted to know what others had learned.
We see the true Christian attitude now in Pope Francis, who is doing his best to channel his namesake, who was doing his best to live the gospel message as he read it–which was that all humans–and animals–were connected. St. Francis even went to preach the gospel to a Sultan–at enormous risk to his life–and when the man responded with grace and generosity (while some of his courtiers said kill the blaspheming infidel), Francis was moved–and puzzled. He could not believe such a man was damned to hellfire. And yet he remained true to his own beliefs–which weren’t so very different from what Francis believed.
I don’t believe in God either, I suppose–but I believe in good people. Isn’t it really the same thing? Wasn’t that was Jesus was really saying? That God is inside us? Waiting for us to let Him out?
Good series of posts Bart.
Of course, your ex-Moody class mates would say that it is God that will judge you. They are not judging you. They are just concerned for your welfare!
Yup, I agree!
Yeah, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who ring my bell in the early morning are concerned for my welfare.
I think they believe that, but I also think that prostelyzing is a way of trying to affirm the validity of one’s own beliefs. People with very deep faith are not concerned that much with whether everyone else believes as they do. People whose faith is not so deep can become very insecure–even angry–when faced with people who don’t share their beliefs.
And worst of all is the backslider. The one who fell from grace.
What’s really baffling is that you see the same thing from many atheists, as Bart has experienced in his attempts to persuade them that yes, Jesus was a real person. I think they’re ‘concerned’ for him in much the same way as his Moody classmates. He bothers them much more than an avowed Christian defending the historical Jesus ever would.
This is what comes of not picking a dogma and sticking with it. This is what comes of wanting to actually think.
As a lawyer, a make legal analogies. I agree with you that hell is “cruel and unusual punishment,” but I worry more about ambiguity. I could believe in an angry God, but not an incoherent God. Under the U.S. Constitution, a law is “void for vagueness” if it does not (1) give actual notice of its meaning and (2) provide sufficiently definite guidelines to prevent arbitrary enforcement.
Fundamentalists talk about God’s plan of salvation, but the devil is in the details. The Bible has no clear guidance on whether babies go to hell (Google “salvation of infants”). If babies do not go to hell, exactly how does God draw the line when a baby raised in a Muslim family? Does God cut him any slack for honoring his father and mother? I can think of the following gray areas.
justification by works or faith
Gentile/Jew
before Christ/after Christ
Infant/adult
baptized/unbaptized
competent/mentally impaired
evangelized/un-evangelized
one saved, always saved/apostates damned
What about a Jewish preteen who believed after hearing Jesus speak the Sermon on the Mount, lost faith after the crucifixion and died before the resurrection? What about Kunta Kinte? Does he go to hell for refusing to believe in the white master’s God?
If, during your fundamentalist days, I had asked you for a clear plan of salvation that covers all these issues, what would you have told me?
I would have said that there are lots of cases that I don’t know about, but some that I do — including modern skeptics who reject the gospel message! They are condemned. (!)
“Debate about Man-Made and Defeated Gods vs Gods Still Standing”
Globally, there is more than the God of Moses and Israel despite the attempts to make a claim that the God of Moses/Israel is the greatest notion of God. The God of Moses/Israel/Temple Judaism was defeated. We are obligated to consider the immediate greater God/s, Jupiter for one, the God/s of Emperor Vespasian and Emperor Titus, both generals that brought down Galilee, Jerusalem, the Temple, its Holy of Holies for the God of Moses/Israel and Jesus who, according to tradition, called the Temple of Temple Judaism, his father’s house of prayer, his God who he thought he knew so well that that notion was his Father.
The Planet Jupiter was the God of the Romans at that time. We ask if the God of Moses/Israel/Jesus is still acting in world affairs. We must also ask if Jupiter is still acting in world affairs. The answer is yes. All you have to do is read
Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas
and you come across gods not made by man. Sure, people can keep the god of a people alive (God of Moses/Israel); but, Jupiter was made by the Sun and the Sun was made by a nebula within the galaxy–all not made by a species which by a long shot was not the first species on Earth, also, a planet not made by this late-coming species, Homo sapiens sapiens.
Free yourself to move forward in truth.
Lawyer Skeptic: Fundamentalists talk about God’s plan of salvation, but the devil is in the details. The Bible has no clear guidance on whether babies go to hell (Google “salvation of infants”). If babies do not go to hell, exactly how does God draw the line when a baby is raised in a Muslim family?
Steefen: The God of Israel, Moses, and Jesus is somebody’s Heavenly Father, even if not the Heavenly Father of those outside the Children of Abraham (Jews, Christians, and Muslims).
Muslims (with their 99 Names of Allah) and Christians recognize God as Compassionate, God as Merciful. The Grace of God is coupled with the details of salvation that you see lacking.
Even those of us who aren’t so much in the public eye have had similar experiences with people who are affiliated with Fundamentalism. I’ve come to the conclusion that the mere existence of people who have different beliefs is offensive and/or troubling to people who have fundamentalist leanings, and that merely expressing an opinion which is in disagreement with a fundamentalist worldview, no matter how that expression is packaged, is sometimes (perhaps often?) taken as an assault and as an all-out deliberate effort to lead people astray. It really is a shame. This makes it difficult to even have an outwardly stated opinion, or to engage in an honestly friendly conversation with no intent to offend or attack without being treated as a hostile opponent.
You’re a magnet for all of that to a greater degree than most of us because of your greater visibility and wider audience. A typical person such as me posts a viewpoint in a forum somewhere and I’m read by maybe a dozen people, whereas everything you might say outside your home has a potential of being read by tens of thousands. Some proportion of those are going to have views which inevitably take anything and everything you say as offensive and hostile, no matter how polite and pleasant it might be, and worse that some of those have crossed paths with you at some point in the past and might also see you as a traitor of sorts. I guess I’d see similar reactions if I were to ever run across any of my old church associates from decades ago (former Southern Baptist).
Hi Bart,
Since your post was about “judgment,” it reminded me that I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to do a post at some point on the meaning of the historical Jesus’ teachings about judging others.
One often hears Christians and others accusing people of being “judgmental.” Or, they say things like “we shouldn’t judge…,” etc. etc. I get the impression that people think that Jesus meant that we have no right to think or say anything about another’s behavior, whatever it may be. To criticize someone for lying, for example, would be judging that person, and that would be wrong.
Yet it seems to me that Jesus is portrayed in the gospels as being at times harshly “judgmental” of the scribes and pharisees. Was he disobeying his own teachings? It occurs to me that if one says that someone else is being judgmental, is that in itself being judgmental of the person he or she is calling judgmental? And is not our whole judicial system based on passing judgment?
And then of course, there is the whole notion of judging “righteous judgment.”
It would be interesting to see a post that discusses these things.
Thanks!
Mike
Good point!
…glad none of your classmates has been appointed judge was funny. Being not particularly amused by profanity, obscenity, vulgarity, it’s good to laugh when finding something funny in one of your posts. And most days I do!
Just as Tolstoy’s Kitty (Anna Karenina) never felt concern that Levin was not a believer and Kitty’s sister even thought of him as a kind of warm saint, I have no doubt your family and friends see you the same way. One of your bloggers said you are more Christ-like than any Christian he knew. You are going to be fine come Judgment Day.
Ha, I’m just finishing Anna Karenina now! (for the third time)
I should have added IMHO.
Don’t worry about leading me astray…. George Carlin got there first!
“I’m glad none of my classmates has been appointed to be the judge!”. Ha! You’re funny!
What do you think of Spinoza’s view of God?
Thanks, as always.
To my shame I have to admit that I’ve never studied Spinoza. But pantheistic views have never, as a rule, held much attraction for me.
Just want to say you are an amazing person Bart, with a great laugh 🙂 And no one can take the good things you have done for people. Judged on your footprints mentally and physically? Like foot prints in the sand. Remember that picture
My life is going better then ever. This blog has helped me the hard times in my life everyday waking up to your new post and you have wished and sent good thoughts my way. Well I think it worked. My heart seems to be healing and becoming more mature by the day. Just want to say thank you for giving me hope, Bart. Thank you 🙂
You’re welcome! Good luck as you forge ahead!
Thanks bart
That brought warmth to my heart
You check out my Facebook yet to see what one of your fans look like 🙂
Again thank you for your support means
A lot
Seems as if when my faith is low it’s low and when it’s strong it’s strong
Tough world out there
And appoligize about my random post and my paragraph structure
I blog using my iphone
I do wish I can meet you one day
So I can thank you in person
And I am perfectly normal in regards of
Emailing you so much when you first contacted me
Just don’t know what over came me I guess
I guess I just beleive a lot bart
Which you do
it sits naturally in your mind
Don’t give up on faith please
And. I won’t
Thank you so much Bart for this awesome blog and all the great things you do for charity and world hunger. I fully support you and hope one day to meet you (hopefully next time you come to LA). In regard to the close minded fundamentalist evangelicals Christians that say such mean, silly, sometimes very nasty (Kyle Butt, James White), and untrue claims that they boldly and ignorantly make up about you. Are you aware of many other professors/ scholars/ historians/ of biblical antiquity that are subject to such harsh acrimony like you do? Scholars such as Michael Coogan, John Collins, Christine Hayes, Jon Levenson, Dale Martin, Paula Fredriksen, etc. Do they sometimes get attacked by evangelicals too?
I don’t really know, but I very much doubt it. These are not people — except for Paula — that are widely known outside of the world of scholarship. So they are not seen as a “threat” to general readers. I’d be interested in seeing if Dom Crossan or Marcus Borg or Elaine Pagels are subject to attack and ridicule, but I suspect not as much, since they don’t write directly in opposition to what conservative Christians argue.
My question is why did you believe that everyone deserved to go hell when you were a teenager? Is it just because this is what you were told, or was there some internal need to believe fully in the scriptures, or a desire to be the most devoted christian you could be, or just fear of not beliving? No judgement, just curious. I used to believe it too.
Simple answer: people go to hell (I thought) because they sinned, and this was the punishment. Christ paid the penalty himself by dying. But one had to accept it by faith. Or else.
I also thought almost exactly the same way you described (and still do). I also noticed that there are many other religions and followers who seemed to be good people who seemed to sincerely believe in their religions and try to live their lives as best as they could. And I came to the most logical conclusion that we better try to get over our differences and love and NOT judge each other on this earth and have broad hearts and minds. And then leave whatever we don’t know to whatever being we don’t know.
Oh, how cruel is this God if he really made up all these religions and saves only those who found the “true” religion? Also, I don’t believe there is only one way to skin a cat; and in fact there are many ways to skin a cat. And life is as much a process rather than a goal; it’s how you live it rather than what you think you believe.
Besides, I always have had so much trouble listening to someone who told me to believe in this and that. After all, what is fun of life when you do not examine it for yourself and reach your own conclusions and do it in your own style?
if jesus’ punishment appeases justice, then jesus DESERVED punishment
thom stark wrote :
Paul identifies the death of Jesus as a “hilasterion” (Rom 3:25), which is a propitiatory sacrifice meant to appease an angry deity. Moreover, in the Gospels Jesus himself regularly cites the Isaian Suffering Servant as predictive of his death, investing it with a sacrificial, propitiatory meaning
if an angry diety is appeased only by the VIOLENT bloody execution of himself and thinks his violent punishment atones for sins, then logically, the romans who punished him CANNOT be guilty of sinful actions
GUILT
noun
1.
the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law; culpability:
He admitted his guilt.
are christians willing to admit that the crucifixion of thier god was a crime? are they willing to admit that something which appeases thier god and atones for sins = wrong? was god nailing himself using roman actions? if yes, then romans cannot be GUILTY of crime, right?