Viewpoint: Lessons from an atheist: Deep into the life of Christ

[Synnical]

http://tinyurl.com/3j94ty

Lessons from an atheist: Deep into the life of Christ
Del Fra, Lou
Issue date: 9/11/08 Section: Viewpoint

Page 1 of 2

A few years ago at a Marriage Prep retreat at Notre Dame for young alumni, I was responsible for meeting with all the inter-faith couples. I knew well that these relationships, however loving, often presented unique challenges for the couple. But even I was caught a little off-guard when, before the retreat, the Director of the Marriage Retreats approached me and said, "This woman from Notre Dame is a practicing Catholic. And the man she is marrying is an atheist." Courageously, I tried to get out of it, arguing that having no faith can't possibly count as an inter-faith couple! But they didn't buy it.

So, with a bit of apprehension, I decided to take a walk with this young man - break the ice in a casual way, try to figure out what he thinks about things that matter deeply to his bride-to-be, like Christianity. So, we're walking around St. Mary's Lake, and to my surprise, we quickly hit it off. This guy was great, one head, no weapons. Even more, our conversation revealed him as a great lover of humanity. He believed in respecting every human being, tried to treat others fairly and was profoundly ethical. So finally, about a half-hour into the conversation, I asked him, "So, what do you think about Jesus?"

And without missing a beat, he shoots back an amazing reply, which was more or less: "I think Jesus was a profound teacher. He gave the world an incredible system of morals. And the thing I respect about him the most is that he lived by what he taught - even when it cost him his life. For me, he's one of the great moral examples we have of what it means to live life with total integrity and to be fully human."

And as he's answering, I'm thinking, "Darn, that's pretty good!" And then I got nervous. I felt sure he was going to ask me, "So what do you think about Jesus?" And in the moment, I wasn't sure I could come up with anything more!
Now, fortunately, he didn't ask, but the question lurked in the back of my mind for the rest of our walk. When I went to bed that night, I was still thinking about our conversation, and the question really started to hit home: "What more do I have to say about who Jesus is?" Call it a matter of pride, but I really want to be able to say more about Jesus than an atheist can!
Continued...

Page 2 is all Jesus and scripture "talk" - I zoned out.

I have so many issues with this, where to begin? But, atheist outreach does help, my friends!

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[skepticscott]

1. There seems to be a profound disconnect here

Either this guy thought that Jesus was divine, and the son of God, or he didn't. If the former, you have to wonder why he was an atheist at all. If the latter, then how can he not believe that Jesus was the biggest liar and con man in history, since his whole teaching was based on his claim that he was the son of God? Telling everyone that you're the son of God and that you're going to take them all to heaven when you really aren't is about the farthest thing from a "great moral example" or living life "with total integrity" that you can imagine. No "incredible system of morals" can be based on a fundamental untruth.

[GreenEyedLefty]

7. I'm in the "Jesus was great but in the end, just a man" camp.

I take what is written in the Gospels with a giant grain of salt given that they are more or less hearsay, probably translated, retranslated and translated yet again ad nauseum, each time with the translator's particular political bent.

I also don't think you have to read his teachings with the idea of his divinity forefront in your mind, given that his message is basic and universal, and repeated by other, non-Christian spiritual teachers throughout the ages (Buddha, Gandhi, et al.)

[Az]

2. ***SHOCK AND DISMAY*** a thoughtful compassionate atheist

What is the world coming to?

This is how we win. We shatter images of how they believe atheists to be and it leads to further reconsideration within their lives. We can't make them believe other than they do. But we can give them experience of other than what they expect. And that is when cognitive dissonance sets in. And that is the gateway to doubt and the point at which reason can be applied to one's own beliefs.

[Warpy]

3. Athesists, well left wing atheists, think the Jesus guy

was onto something, that if folks actually treated each other according to the simple rules he set out, this would be a much better place to live. We just don't believe he was a god--just an ordinary man with extraordinary insight.

Christians, well right wing Christians, think those teachings were a lot of sissy bullshit, but that Christ guy was god so they'd better bow down and mumble a lot of words that flatter him while they plan to screw their neighbors out of everything they can get. They don't want to get caught flat footed when their number is up, you see, and as long as they flatter the god they can ignore his words.

Just don't make the mistake here that acknowledging the words can help us build any sort of bridge to the religious right. It can't. Their focus is the myth, not the words, and they think we're fools along with the mainstream religious who run soup kitchens and clothing drops for the shiftless poor folks they have no use for.

Outreach can help, but only to the people who are reachable, the ones in the mainstream churches that spend little time on Leviticus and more time on Matthew and Mark.

Even the religious guy in this article was more concerned with one upmanship than coping with an atheist he found he liked on his own terms.

[skepticscott]

4. But was Jesus really "onto something"

or did he just have better publicists? Is there any part of Jesus' moral philosophy that is both distinct from his claims to divinity and unique to him (i.e. undiscovered or not promulgated by anyone else before or since)? Isn't it possible to live our lives by proper moral principles without dragging in all the religious baggage?

[Odin2005]

5. The teachings of all the great moral teachers are all very similar.

The Golden Rule, for example, seems to be almost universal, no matter if the teacher was Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, Epicurus, or Confucius.

[onager]

6. I'll take "better publicists" for $500 and a stolen Jesus Cracker.

As someone who grew up steeped in the Jesus myth (Southern Baptist), it really tickled me when I got older and could easily spot its contradictions.

e.g., the Bible is always thundering against "false prophets," but Jesus himself has to be Number One on the False Prophecy Hit Parade.

In one famous verse, he says he will return and the world will end, etc. etc., "before some of you have tasted death." The exegesists can spin their usual webs of lies around that verse ad infinitum, but the meaning is crystal clear: The End Is Nigh in less than a generation.

That clarity was obscured...HAD to be obscured...in the later rewrites, aka "gospels," because pretty obviously the world had not ended. So new layers of bullshit had to be piled on to cover up that inconvenient fact.

Jesus also predicted the destruction of Tyre and Sidon, but they remain today where they always were: off the coasts of Israel and Lebannon. Predicting their destruction was a pretty safe bet, since they were always being attacked/besieged. They sat in the middle of major trade and military routes thru the area at the time (just like another city of Biblical obsession, Megiddo/Armageddon). Tyre had been conquered 300 years before Jesus came along, by Alexander The Great. Even he found it a tough nut to crack, and only took it after months of brutal seige warfare with heavy casualties.

As I've ranted before, the whole Jesus story reminds me of another story about a manuscript. Once an aspring writer sent his work to the notorious British grump, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who returned it with the following review:

"Your story is both good and original. Unfortunately, the good parts are not original, and the original parts are not good."

That fits the Bible to a "T."