Roe vs Wade Revisited

I have read many articles and posts decrying the right of the mother to an abortion. Finally, I have gone to the trouble to articulate a solution which actually addresses the law which has established “the right of the mother to an abortion.” Here it is:
I must ask of the utility of such arguments that abortion violates the fetus’s right to life. I suppose “doing something about it” must begin somewhere, and perhaps these arguments can be preparatory to such action.
The law allowing the abortion of fetuses does not arise from the usual legislative processes. The judicial system is not intended to be a legislative body, yet, it’s interpretation of the constitutionality of any law, itself, becomes new law, as though it were legislated.
The article you post raises some very important questions. But, I must ask: is it for mere complaint, or is it intended, or can it be used, for some positive action to change the law arising out of Roe vs. Wade. Perhaps it can.
If one examines he Supreme Court case of Roe vs. Wade, the right to abortion was fashioned out of a broader constitutional right to due process. Due process basically means that one cannot lose a constitutional right except by due process of law. The Supreme Court fashioned a constitutional right arising from the right of due process: the mother’s right to privacy. The focus then was upon the mother’s rights. In the various cases that followed that case, the notion of viability of the fetus arose: at the time of the abortion, is the fetus viable? If not, the mothers right to privacy, meaning right to abortion, trumps any right of the fetus to live; if already viable, the fetus’s right to live trumps the mothers right to privacy (to an abortion). From those cases, the general principle arose that a fetus shall be considered to be viable after the 1st trimester of the pregnancy, and not viable before 3 months. That made a very simple law that could be uniformly applied, without the necessity of individual determination of the specific fetus’s viability.
How does one change the Supreme Court’s “established law?” By another court case that raises new factors never considered by the Supreme Court previously, or meriting the Supreme Court’s re-examination of the prior issue.
All of the “right to life” articles and arguments against abortion focus upon the fetus’s right to life as opposed to the mothers “right to an abortion.”. If people want to make more than a mere argument for argument’s sake concerning the fetus’s right to life, they must “create a test case” framing it as an undecided, but compelling right, deserving of the Court’s consideration. It must then marshall compelling facts showing, not the sacredness of life, but the facts relating to that sacredness which accrue to the right of the fetus to survive.
One related issue that I seldom see, actually, never see or hear argued, is the infant’s right to nurture and sustenance once born. That has easily been avoided in the past by the argument against notions of the “welfare state.” It strikes me that that issue is as compelling, perhaps more so, as any argument for the right to life.

The Common Threat of Isis Could Be an Opportunity to Unite

It strikes me that the threat of Isis is spread throughout the world. Often times a common enemy will unite what are otherwise rivals. This would be a good opportunity for the United States, Russia, and China to work toward a common goal: the eradication of Isis for a safer world.

Debate Concerning President Obama’s Call For Discourse on Gun Violence

Rob: Some musings today concerning President Obama on gun violence: he simply asks to begin the political discussion
Legitimate topics of discussion:
What about the right of the public to safety?
…
What are the limits on the right to bear arms?
What was “the right to bear arms” as it existed at the framing of the constitution?
The 2nd Amendment addresses that right in the context of state militias: what significance does that have?
Concerning those areas outside the veil of that right, what powers does the congress have to address the high level of gun violence we are experiencing? How can it appropriately assure the public’s right to safety?
Since the 2nd Amendment does nothing to grant a right to bear arms nor to limit the states’ powers to abridge it, what can state and municipal bodies do to address the right of the public to be safe from gun violence?
Cathy tend to focus on the “well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” part of the 2nd amendment. In my opinion this does not refer to carrying a handgun or assault rifle through the street in the off chance that you come across a “bad guy” who isn’t a tyrant.

Janece f Recent mass killings were committed with guns obtained legally. Does that tell us that the screening process for getting weapons might not be safe and effective?

Robert E Wheeler These should be part of the dialogue.

Jim The Supremes have affirmed the peoples rights Bob, along with limited state and federal rights to regulate.
Your premise is wrong. The government has laws to protect its citizens from crimes, but the law can’t be everywhere at the same time.

Robert E Wheeler Well said. That is part of the dialogue, but shouldn’t be a trump card to end the discussion..

Anna Bon matter how many gun laws there are, the criminals and crazies always find a way to get guns

Everett The intention was clear even a century ago when they reorganized the militias into the military, state (paid) National Guard and the unorganized (volunteer) militias.
In short, all able bodied males ages 18-45, have the absolute personal right and second amendment right to keep and bear arms of any type, and as many as they can afford.

That is very clear on intent. What happens when we age out is not clear, But in an emergency, I doubt next year that they will turn me away as a sniper for the unorganized militia.

So what changed in society, besides news coverage, that the farmer or businessman who can drop everything else to defend their family, neighbors, and country is no longer acceptable?

Robert E Wheeler More musing: accepting the well articulated view of my former classmate and friend, Jim Corr, have the circumstances changed since the establishment of our own Constitution so that the “well armed citizenry” might itself present a tyrannous threat to the nation and its citizens?
There is no doubt about it: the Federalist papers show that the Second Amendment was intended primarily to allow for the arming of the citizens so as to effectuate their resistance to the tyranny of… their federal government.
Wouldn’t that necessarily imply that they have weapons effective against those of their tyrannous national government, including armored air power and nuclear weapons?
Would it now permit the tyranny of a few to impose their will or inflict fear upon the increased size of population who have greater reliance upon order within their government?
What effect increased gun violence against citizens?
Is it time to reexamine the Second Amendment in the light of a dramatically changed world from that existing at the time of its making?

Jim Disagree with your decription of “living constitution.” That’s a liberal view. The basic premise of this amendment is indesputable. If you want to change that you must amend the Constitution.
Now to the real problem of keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. As far as we know Mercer purchased his guns legally. Is there anyway that could have been prevented? What if everyone diagnosed with a mental health disorder had that information placed in a government data base which could be flagged if the attempted to buy a gun?

Robert E Wheeler Fascinating discussion!

Everett Maybe part of the problem is the main benefit of armed citizens. What is that benefit? No one has been insane enough to start a military invasion of the USA during our lifetimes. Yes, there were the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks. But they were attacks, not armed invasions. The founders remembered countries over running other countries in Europe. We should remember two world wars from at least history class, and be prepared to stop any invasion of our land.
Actual quote or not, this concept contains truth.

http://www.skylighters.org/quotations/quots6.html

My second thought comes from two friends in fire and rescue squads. They both believe the statistics that show what percentage of assaults or deaths are “caused by gun use” are flat out wrong. But it is not wrong in the direction I figured they would say.

Rural and urban, people will use whatever is at hand to commit evil deeds. And according to the guys who try to save lives and mop up the messes, crimes using Flat Screen TV’s or a kitchen knife are grossly under reported.

It appears you are much more likely to be killed at home with fists or anything but the kitchen sink than by a mass shooter.

One likely scenario the rural one fears involves fertilizer, diesel, and a digital clock in a school or theater next time.

None of these objects can be regulated enough to overcome the evil in the human heart. You would have to start with the stick or rock Cain used to murder Able.

Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and is wicked. Who can know it!

Jim Well said.

Cathy Automobiles, kitchen knives, flat screen TV’s, fists, fertilizer, diesel, digital clocks: these are all objects that have other uses. Automobiles are actually tightly regulated. You have to be licensed and insured, and the vehicle has to be registered in order to operate one. Maybe that’s a good starting point. At the very least, let’s not pretend that gun violence isn’t really a problem in our society.

Jim Hundreds of thousands of babies killed through abortion compared to less than 9000 killed with firearms. I guess its how you define problem.

Cathy That of course is a separate issue, unrelated to gun violence. Is your point that gun violence is not a problem unless it is the only problem? I though we were at least in agreement that gun violence is a problem!

Jim Violence of any kind is a problem. The source of the violence isn’t the gun. It is the person firing the gun! I don’t have a solutuon to violence. Christ taught us to treat others as we would like to be treated. That is a rule i try to live by. It is frustrating that others dont see it that same way. You’re seeking a solution to a societal problem that has become compounded by drugs, alcohol, mental illness etc, when there is no one single solution.

Everett Cigarettes (and other tobacco products) have no other use. Not self defense, not hunting, no sporting use, and it is highly regulated. Tobacco, while still legal, harms then kills 440,000 each year. Why is it still legal? How many fires are started by careless smokers, and what about the property damage and deaths from those fires?

The VW diesel emission cheating scheme is projected to kill more people in the U.S. each of the next ten years than mass shootings have.

The press has us focusing on the wrong things. Educating and elevating the poor but willing and able, helping the disabled, treating those with substance abuse issues, and treating the mentally ill would save and improve so many more lives than banter about gun control. And the return on investment would be much greater than further gun legislation and seizure programs. But these things do not make exciting headlines.

Jim Absolutely agree Everett!

Cathy Everett, cigarettes and VW are worth talking about and doing something about. They are, however, unrelated to gun violence. Either gun violence is a problem or it isn’t. If it is, then we should do something about it, whether tobacco is legal or not (I personally don’t think it should be, but at least smokers are mostly just killing themselves).
Bringing up other problems doesn’t lessen the problem at hand. We are a nation of problem-solvers, and there are 300 million of us. We can devote some great minds to working on multiple problems at once.

Jim Violence in general is a problem (repeating myself). We should punish those who are guilty of it, not those who had no part in it. The one size fits all solution for gun violence is to ban guns. That won’t happen! You would be inviting civil war. The solutions then are to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and of the mentally ill. Can we agree on that?

Cathy (Actually Cathy this time) I don’t think that Ernie is calling for an all-out ban on guns, but rather some sensible laws and precautions, but I’ll let him reply if he wants to.

What do you think about a federal licensing or permitting system like some states already have? People who want to buy a gun would pass a background check that includes a doctor’s form (much like the form that exists for kindergarten), training and exam, registration, and perhaps insurance. These are all things we do for our cars, so why not for guns?

The doctor’s form would help prevent some inappropriate people (homicidal/suicidal/ generally unfit for gun ownership) from obtaining a permit. The training would be beneficial for any owner. Registration would be helpful if the gun is stolen. Insurance, well, because it seems practical.

Jim When i go to purchase a firearm i have to complete this long form which goes to ATF i believe. In there i have to declare im a citizen and i believe that ive no mental illness. I could be wrong in that. I could live with a certificate from my doctor attesting to my mental well being. Doctors would want to be indemnified though from law suits. I dont get the insurance part. Insurance for what. I insure my guns from theft.

Cathy As with cars, liability for damage or injury caused by your improper use of the gun (after your first “accident” it may be hard to get insurance:) –E

Jim I know it exists. Making it mandatory is another separate issue. Kind of like forcing people to sign up for Obamacare. If you commit a gun crime you may be charged criminally, but you could also be sued in civil court.

Everett Require gun insurance for what exactly?

The rest of the idea is a lot of hassle and a potential restriction of freedoms for what is actually a very small number of deaths and injuries. Motor vehicles, while being a keystone of our lifestyle, still kill way too many people. Why should a similar program help responsible, legal gun owners? Car theft, accidents, and drunk driving still happen.

Firearm registration programs have led to abuse (newspaper publication of owners name and addresses to start with) and eventually to universal buyback and confiscation in places like England and Australia. Then like it or not, crime rates, including violent home invasions, go up. That is not how I want to live.

Jim The problem with the medical certificate is what happens if your condition changes after you by the gun? Would have to be a provision for the doctor to update.

Jim The medical privacy issue would be the most difficult to overcome. How about we guard our schools like we guard our government offices, banks, military installations, and movie stars…with armed guards.

Everett Yes, please!

Jim Goid night all!

Everett This sounds too incredible, but is true. I taught in a Nebraska school where the judge required a student to attend so he would stay out of further trouble. The kid was accused of robbing banks with his meth head brothers and their friends. He had also brought and passed a pistol around school. (He was avoiding a locker check.) This was soon after Columbine, and the judge overrode the school suspension because of the bank robbery charges.

I do not think he legally obtained the hand guns, and the staff would have appreciated some body guards.

Inner city schools could use help with gang and drug control, too. Metal detectors are not enough.
Annita Wheeler Parmelee Something else: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/…/our-tragic…/

Our Tragic Response to the Oregon Tragedy
Witnessing all the online fury, I can’t help but feel like this unspeakable tragedy in Oregon has just become — if…
thegospelcoalition.org

Robert E Wheeler Good article, Annita. And it should not shortcut the political discourse that the President ernestly pleads for.

Sally I bet our Founding Fathers are turning in their graves. Change it because a bunch of people don’t like it. Bah! Guns don’t kill, People that are sick kill.

Robert E Wheeler What can I say!

Annita Ernie, trying to sort out what you really think from the sarcasm.. I assume you really don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons. I doubt you think we can (or should) control people’s diets to reduce obesity. You do think we should limit “sick people’s” access to weapons, never mind praying. You do see a significant difference between the shootings that occur every day in Chicago and Iran wiping the nation of Israel off the map just because they are there.

Cathy Annita, these are all the same arguments we hear for not taking action on gun violence. If they sound ridiculous to you in this context, I can tell you that they sound equally ridiculous to many of us when we’re talking about trying to make sensible changes to gun laws.

Annita Ernie, Quoting myself…”Trying to figure out who can own guns is the wrong solution. Maybe a better question would be why are so many boys and young men in our country unemployed, angry, doing poorly academically, and feeling hopeless. We don’t value them as a group or individually. Have you noticed most of the “mass” shooters in recent years have been young men? It seems to me if we thought about this sociologically we might place some blame on our society. We’ve progressed to where we deny the reality of things that give meaning and purpose to life.”

Cathy I almost completely agree with you Annita. I remember growing up in a time when I didn’t worry about mass shooters, and didn’t do lockdown drills at school. The world was a fascinating and exciting place, rather than a dangerous place where we all needed to be armed. There were unlimited possibilities. Our society has become obsessed with violence and with guns. TV, movies, video games, and real life are all full of it. I want us to work on these things, just like you do! But I also want us to admit that the easy availability of weapons that allow you to make life or death decisions by moving a finger is making it easier for unhappy, maladjusted, hopeless, or just mentally ill people to do horrible things. We can work this problem from both sides simultaneously — they are not mutually exclusive!

Promises of Jesus’ Return and Establishment of the Kingdom of God

Matthew 10:1 – 16;
Jesus called his 12 disciples to him, and gave them authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal every kind of sickness and disease… Jesus sent them out with these instructions: “don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to … [The Jews], God’s lost sheep. … When you are persecuted in one city, flee to the next! I will return before you reach them all!…”

Mark 9:1 Jesus is transfigured on the mountain
Jesus went on to say to his disciples, “some of you who are standing here right now will live to see the kingdom of God arrived in great power.”

Mark 13:1 Jesus tells about the future
But for the sake of his chosen ones he will limit those days…. “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

Matthew 24:1 – 25;
“I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

Luke 21:5 – 24
“I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

The Scourge through Ascension into Heaven

Mark 15:6 Pilate hands Jesus over to be crucified
Matthew 27:15 – 26; Luke 23:13 – 25; John 18: 38 – 19:16
Mark 15:16 Roman soldiers mock Jesus
Matthew 27:27 – 31
Mark 15:21 Jesus is led away to be crucified
Matthew 27:32 – 34; Luke 23:26 – 31; John 19:17
Mark 15:25 Jesus is placed on the cross
Matthew 27:35 – 44; Luke 23:32 – 43; John 19:18 – 27
Mark 15:33 Jesus dies on the cross
Matthew 27:45 – 56; Luke 23:44 – 49; John 19:28 – 37
Mark 15:42 Jesus is laid in the tomb
Matthew 27:57 – 61; Luke 23:50 – 56; John 19:38 – 42
Matthew 27:3 Judas kills himself
Matthew 28:62 guards are posted at the tomb
Mark 16:1 Jesus rises from the dead
Matthew 28:1 – seven; Luke 2.4:1 – 12; John 20:1 – nine
Mark 16:9 Jesus appears to Mary Magdalena
John 20:10 – 18
Matthew 28:8 Jesus appears to the women
Matthew 28:11 religious leaders bribed the guards
Mark 16:12 Jesus appears to two believers on the road – “afterword Jesus appeared in the different form to two of them while they were walking in the country.”
Luke 24:13 – 35
Mark 16:14 Jesus appears to the disciples (including Thomas)
Luke 24:44 Jesus appears to the disciples in Jerusalem
John 20:24 – 31
John 21:1 Jesus appears to the disciples while fishing
John 21:15 – 23 Jesus talks with Peter
Mark 16:15 Jesus gives the great commission
Matthew 28:16 – 20
Mark 16:19 Jesus ascends into heaven
Luke 24:5 – 53

Chief Priests Plot to Kill Jesus through Trial before Pilate

Mark 14:1 the chief priests and teachers of the law plot to kill Jesus
Matthew 26:1 – five; Luke 22:1 – two
Mark 14:3 a woman anoints Jesus with perfume
Matthew 26:6 – 13; John 12:1 – 11
John 12:12 Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the donkey
John 12:20 Jesus explains why he must die
John 12:37 most of the people do not believe in Jesus
John 12:44 Jesus summarizes his message
John 13:1 Jesus teaches his disciples – Jesus washes the disciples’ feet
John 14:1 Jesus is the way to the father
John 14:15 Jesus promises the Holy Spirit
John 15:1 Jesus teaches about the vine and the branches
John 15:18 Jesus warns about the world’s hatred
John 16:5 Jesus teaches about the Holy Spirit
John 16:33 Jesus teaches about using his name in prayer
Luke 22:31 Jesus predicts Peter’s denial
John 13:31 – 38
Mark 14:10 Judas agrees to betray Jesus
Matthew 26:14 – 16; Luke 22:3 – 6
Mark 14:12 Jesus prepares for the Passover
Matthew 26:17 – 19; Luke 22:7 – 13
Mark 14:17 Jesus and the disciples have the Last Supper
Matthew 26:20 – 30; Luke 22:14 – 30; John 13:21 – 30
Mark 14:32 Jesus agonizes in the garden
Matthew 26:36 – 46; Luke 22:39 – 46
John 17:1 Jesus prays for himself
John 17:6 Jesus prays for his disciples
John 18:20 Jesus prays for future believers
John 18:1 Jesus completes his mission – Jesus is betrayed and arrested
Mark 14:43 Jesus is betrayed and arrested
Matthew 26:47 – 56; Luke 22:47 – 53; John 18:1 – 11
Mark 14:53 high priest questions Jesus
Matthew 26:57 – 68
John 18:12 [Annas] questions Jesus
Mark 14:66 Peter denies knowing Jesus
Matthew 26:69 – 75; Luke 22:54 – 65; John 18:25 – 27
Mark 15:1 religious leaders condemn Jesus
Matthew 27:1, two; Luke 22:66 – 71
Luke 23:6 Jesus stands trial before Herod
Mark 15:2 Jesus stands trial before Pilate.
Matthew 27:11 – 14; Luke 23:1 – five; John 18:28 – 37; John 19:1 -21

The Gospels: Jesus Rides into Jerusalem through Teaching to Remain Watchful

Mark 9:14 Jesus heals a demon – possessed boy
Matthew 17:14 – 21; Luke 9:37 – 43
Matthew 17:24 Peter finds the coin in the fish’s mouth
Matthew 10:17 Jesus prepares the disciples for persecution
Matthew 11:1 Jesus teaches about the kingdom: Jesus uses John’s doubt
Luke 7:18 – 35
Matthew 11:20 Jesus promises rest for the soul
Mark 9:30 Jesus predicts his death the second time
Matthew 17:22, 23; Luke 9:44, 45
Mark 9:33 the disciples argue about who would be the greatest
Matthew 18:1 – 6; Luke 9:46 – 48
Mark 9:38 the disciples forbid another to use Jesus’ name
Luke 9:49, 50
Luke 9:42 Jesus warns against temptation
Matthew 18:7 – nine
Matthew 18:10 Jesus warns against looking down on others
Matthew 18:15 Jesus teaches how to treat a believer who sins
Matthew 1821 Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving debtor
Mark 10:1 Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce
Matthew 19:1 – 12
Mark 10:13 Jesus blesses little children
Matthew 19:13 – 15; Luke 18:15 – 17
Mark 10:17 Jesus speaks to the rich young man
Matthew 12:38 religious leaders asked Jesus for a miracle
Matthew 19:16 – 30; Luke 18:18 – 30
Matthew 20:1 Jesus tells the parable of the workers paid equally
Mark 10:32 Jesus predicts his death the third time
Matthew 20:17 – 19; Luke 18:31 – 34
Mark 10:35 Jesus teaches about serving others
Matthew 20:20 – 28
Mark 10:46 Jesus heals a blind beggar
Matthew 20:29 – 34; Luke 18:35 – 43

Jesus Heals Demon Possessed Boy through Blind Beggar

Mark 9:14 Jesus heals a demon – possessed boy
Matthew 17:14 – 21; Luke 9:37 – 43
Matthew 17:24 Peter finds the coin in the fish’s mouth
Matthew 10:17 Jesus prepares the disciples for persecution
Matthew 11:1 Jesus teaches about the kingdom: Jesus uses John’s doubt
Luke 7:18 – 35
Matthew 11:20 Jesus promises rest for the soul
Mark 9:30 Jesus predicts his death the second time
Matthew 17:22, 23; Luke 9:44, 45
Mark 9:33 the disciples argue about who would be the greatest
Matthew 18:1 – 6; Luke 9:46 – 48
Mark 9:38 the disciples forbid another to use Jesus’ name
Luke 9:49, 50
Luke 9:42 Jesus warns against temptation
Matthew 18:7 – nine
Matthew 18:10 Jesus warns against looking down on others
Matthew 18:15 Jesus teaches how to treat a believer who sins
Matthew 1821 Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving debtor
Mark 10:1 Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce
Matthew 19:1 – 12
Mark 10:13 Jesus blesses little children
Matthew 19:13 – 15; Luke 18:15 – 17
Mark 10:17 Jesus speaks to the rich young man
Matthew 12:38 religious leaders asked Jesus for a miracle
Matthew 19:16 – 30; Luke 18:18 – 30
Matthew 20:1 Jesus tells the parable of the workers paid equally
Mark 10:32 Jesus predicts his death the third time
Matthew 20:17 – 19; Luke 18:31 – 34
Mark 10:35 Jesus teaches about serving others
Matthew 20:20 – 28
Mark 10:46 Jesus heals a blind beggar
Matthew 20:29 – 34; Luke 18:35 – 43

The Gospels Mary and Martha through Transfiguration

Luke 10:38 Jesus visits Mary and Martha
Luke 11:1 Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer
Luke 11:14 Jesus answers hostile accusations
Luke 11:29 Jesus warns about unbelief
Luke 11:33 Jesus teaches about the light within
Luke 11:37 Jesus criticizes the religious leaders
Luke 12:1 Jesus speaks about hypocrisy
Luke 12:13 Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool
Luke 12:22 Jesus warns about worry
Luke 12:35 Jesus warns about preparing for his coming
Luke 12:49 Jesus warns about coming ____
Luke 12:54 Jesus warns about the future crisis
Luke 13:1 Jesus calls the people to repent
Luke 13:10 Jesus heals the crippled woman
Luke 13:18 Jesus teaches about the kingdom of God
Luke 13:22 Jesus teaches about entering the kingdom
Luke 13:31 Jesus grieves over Jerusalem
Luke 14:1 Jesus heals the man with dropsy
Luke 14:19 Jesus teaches about seeking honor
Luke 14:15 Jesus tells the parable of the great feast
Luke 14:25 Jesus teaches about the cost of being a disciple
Luke 15:1 Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep
Luke 15:8 Jesus tells the parable of the lost coin
Luke 15:11 Jesus tells the parable of the lost son
Luke 16:1 Jesus tells the parable of the shrewd manager
Luke 16:19 Jesus tells about the rich man and the beggar
Luke 17:1 Jesus tells about forgiveness and faith
Luke 17:11 Jesus heals 10 men with leprosy
Luke 17:20 Jesus teaches about the coming of the kingdom of God
Luke 18:1 Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow
Luke 18:9 Jesus tells the parable of two men who prayed
Luke 18:15 Jesus blesses little children
Matthew 19:3 – 15; Mark 10:13 – 60
Mark 6:14 Herod kills John the Baptist
Matthew 14:1 – 12; Luke 9:7 – nine
Mark 6:30 Jesus feeds 5000
Matthew 14:3 – 21; Luke 9:10 through 17; John 6:1 – 15
Mark 6:45 – Jesus walks on water
Matthew 14:22 – 33; John 6:16 – 21
Mark 6:53 Jesus heals all who touch him
Matthew 14:34 – 36
Mark 7:1 Jesus teaches about purity
Matthew 15:1 – 20
Mark 7:24 Jesus sends a demon out of the girl
Matthew 15:21 – 28
Luke 19:1 Jesus brings salvation to Zacchaeus’ home
Mark 7:31 the crowd marvels at Jesus’ healings
Matthew 15:29 – 31
Mark 8:1 Jesus feeds 4000
Matthew 15:32 – 39
Matthew 8:14 – Jesus warns against wrong teaching
Matthew 16:5 – 12
Mark 8:22 Jesus restore sight to a blind man by spitting on the man’s eyes
Mark 8:27 Peter says Jesus is the Messiah
Matthew 16:13 – 20; Luke 9:18 – 20
Mark 8:31 Jesus predicts his death the first time
Matthew 16:21 – 28; Luke 9:21 – 27
Mark 9:1 Jesus is transfigured on the mountain
Matthew 17:1 – 13; Luke 9:28 – 36

The Gospels Religious Plots to Kill Jesus through Good Samaritan

John 11:45 religious leaders plot to kill Jesus
Luke 7:11 Jesus raises a widow’s son from the dead
Luke 8:1 women in the company of Jesus and the disciples
Luke 7:36 a sinful woman anoints Jesus’ feet
Matthew 8:16 Jesus teaches about fasting
Matthew 8:19 Jesus teaches about money
Matthew 8:25 Jesus teaches about worry
Mark 1:29 Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law and many others
Matthew 8:14 – 17; Luke 4:34 – 41
Mark 1:40 a man with leprosy came to him
Matthew 8:1 – four; Luke 5:12 – 16
Matthew 8:18 Jesus teaches about the cost of following him
Luke 9:51 – 62
Mark 2:1 at Capernaam
Matthew 9:1 – eight; Luke 5:17 – 26
Mark 2:13 – Jesus eats with sinners at Matthew’s house
Matthew 9:9 – 13; Luke 5:27 – 32
Mark 2:18 religious leaders asked Jesus about fasting
Matthew 9:14 – 17; Luke 5:33 – 39
Mark two – 23 disciples picked wheat on the Sabbath
Matthew 12:1 – eight; Luke 6:1 – 5
Matthew 9:27 Jesus heals the blind and mute
Mark 3:1 Jesus heals a man’s hand on the Sabbath
Matthew 12:9 – 14; Luke 6:6 – 11
Mark 3:7 large crowds follow Jesus
Matthew 12:5 – 20
Mark 3:20 Jesus accused of being Satan
Matthew 12:22 – 37
Mark 3:31 Jesus describes his true family
Matthew 12:46 – 50; Luke 8:19 – 21
Mark 4:1 Jesus tells the parable of the four soils
Matthew 13:1 – nine; Luke 8:4 – eight
Mark 4:10 Jesus explains the parable of the four soils
Matthew 13:10; Luke 8:9 to 18
Matthew 13:24 – Jesus tells the parable of the weeds
Matthew 13:36 Jesus explains the parable of the weeds
Matthew 13:44 Jesus tells the parable of hidden treasure
after you 13:45 Jesus tells the parable of the pearl merchant
Matthew 13:47 Jesus tells the parable of the fishing net
Mark 4:26 Jesus tells the parable of the growing seed
Mark 4:30 Jesus tells the parable of mustard seed
Matthew 13:31, 32
Matthew 13:33 – Jesus tells the parable of the _____
Mark 4:35 Jesus calms the storm
Matthew 8:23 – 27; Luke 8:22 – 25
Mark 5:1 Jesus sends the demons into a herd of pigs
Matthew 8:28 – 34; Luke 8:26 – 39
Mark 5:21 Jesus heals a bleeding woman and restores a girl to life
Matthew 9:18 – 26; Luke 8:40 – 56
Mark 6:1 the people of Nazareth refused to believe
Matthew 13:53 – 54
Mark 6:7 Jesus sends out the 12 disciples
Matthew 10:1 – 16; Luke 9:1 – six
Luke 10:1 Jesus sends out 72 messengers
Luke 10:17 the 72 messengers returned
Luke 10:35 Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan

The Gospels John the Baptist through raising Lazarus

John 3:22 John the Baptist tells more about Jesus
Luke 3:19 Herod puts John in prison
Mark 1:14 Jesus’ ministry in Galilee
Matthew 4:12 – 17; Luke 4:14, 15; John 4:43 – 44
Mark 1:16 Jesus calls four fishermen: Simon and Andrew; James and John
Matthew 4:18 – 22
John 1:35 the first disciples followed Jesus
John 2:1 Jesus turned water into wine
Luke: 5:1 Jesus provides a miraculous catch of fish
John 2:12 Jesus clears the temple
Mark 1:21 Jesus teaches with great authority
Luke 4:31 – 37
John 4:1 Jesus talks to a woman at the well
John 3:1 Nicodemus visits Jesus at night
Matthew 5:3 the Beatitudes
Matthew 5:5 Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount
Luke 6:17 – 26
Matthew 5:13 Jesus teaches about salt and light
Matthew 5:17 Jesus teaches about the law
Matthew 5: 21 Jesus teaches about anger
Matthew 5:27 Jesus teaches about lost
Matthew 5:30 Jesus teaches about vows
Matthew 5:38 Jesus teaches about retaliation
Matthew 5:43 Jesus teaches about loving enemies
Luke 6:27 – 36
Matthew 6:1 Jesus teaches about giving to the needy
Matthew 6:5 Jesus teaches about prayer
Matthew 6:16 Jesus teaches about fasting
Matthew 6:19 Jesus teaches about money
Matthew 6:25 Jesus teaches about worry
Matthew 7:1 Jesus teaches about criticizing others
Luke 6:37 – 42
Matthew 7:7 Jesus teaches about asking, seeking, knocking
Matthew 7:13 Jesus teaches about the way to heaven
Mark 7:15 Jesus teaches about fruit in people’s lives
Luke 6:43 – 45
Matthew 7:21 Jesus teaches about those who build houses on rock and sand
Luke 6:46 – 40
John 4:27 Jesus tells about the spiritual harvest
John 4:39 many Samaritans believe in Jesus
John 4:46 Jesus heals a government official’s son
John 5:1 Jesus heals a lame man by the pool
John 5:19 Jesus claims to be God’s son
John 5:31 Jesus supports his claim
John 6:22 – Jesus is the true bread from heaven
John 6:41 the Jews disagree that Jesus is from heaven
John 7:60 many disciples desert Jesus
John 7:1 Jesus encounters conflict with the religious leaders – Jesus’ brothers ridicule him
John 7:10 Jesus teaches openly in the temple
John 7:32 religious leaders attempt to arrest Jesus
John 7:46 Jesus forgives an adulterous woman
John 8:12 Jesus is the light of the world
John 8:21 Jesus warns of coming judgment
John 8:31 Jesus speaks about God’s true children
John 9:48 Jesus states he is eternal
John 9:1 Jesus heals the man who was born blind
John 9:13 religious leaders question the blind man
John 9:35 Jesus teaches about spiritual blindness
John 10:1 Jesus is the good shepherd
John 10:22 religious leaders surround Jesus at Temple
John 11:1 Jesus encounters crucial events in Jerusalem – Lazarus becomes ill and dies
John 11:17 Jesus comforts Mary and Martha
John 11:38 Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead

The Gospels through Temptation

Luke 1:1 Luke’s purpose in writing
John 1:1 – 13 God became human
Luke 1:5 an angel promises the birth of John to Zachariah
Luke 1:26 an angel promises the birth of Jesus to Mary
Luke 1:39 Mary visits Elizabeth
Matthew 1:1 genealogy of Jesus
the genealogy is traced from Abraham through David to Joseph
Luke 3:23 – 38
traces Jesus genealogy from Jesus back to Cainan, who was the great great great grandson of Mathuselah
Mark 1:1 “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
Malachi 3:1; Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:27
Matthew 1:8 an angel appears to Joseph
Luke 2:1 Jesus is born in Bethlehem
Luke 2:8 shepherds visit Jesus
Luke 2:21 Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple
Matthew 2:1 visitors arrive from eastern lands
Matthew 2:13 the escape to Egypt
Matthew 2:19 they returned to Nazareth
Luke 1:57 John the Baptist is born
Luke 2:41 Jesus speaks with the religious leaders
John 1:19 John the Baptist declares his mission
Matthew 3:1 John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus
Luke 3:1 – 18
Mark 1:4 John baptizing in the desert and preaching and baptizing
John 1:29 John the Baptist proclaims Jesus as Messiah
Mark 1:9 Jesus is baptized
Matthew 3:13 – 17; Luke 3:21, 22
Mark 1:12 temptation in the desert
Matthew 4:1 – 11; Luke 4:1 – 13

The Four Gospels

From the Life Application Bible, new international version
Matthew:
author: Matthew (Levi)
purpose: to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, the eternal King
to whom was it written: especially for the Jews
date written: A.D. 60 – 65
special features: Matthew is filled with messianic language (“son of David” is used throughout), there are 53 quotes from the Old Testament, and 76 references to the old testament
Mark:
author: John Mark. He was not one of the 12 disciples but he accompanied Paul on his first missionary journey (acts 13:13)
purpose: to present the person, work, and teachings of Jesus
to whom it was written: the Christians in Rome where he wrote the gospel
date written: between A.D. 55 and 65
Luke:
author: Luke, a doctor (Colossians 4:14) he is the only known Gentile writer in the New Testament. Luke was a close friend and companion of Paul. He also wrote Acts, and the two books go together
purpose: to present an accurate account of the life of Jesus and to present Christ as the perfect human and Savior
to whom it was written: Theophilus (“one who loves God”), Gentiles, and people everywhere
date written: about A.D. 60
John
author: John the apostle, son of Zebedee, brother of James, called “son of thunder”
purpose: to prove conclusively that Jesus is the son of God and that all who believe in him will have eternal life
date written: probably A.D. 85 – 19 written after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and before John’s exiled to the island of Patmos.

Background to the Gospels

Background to the Gospels
Prophecy of the Messiah
pre-Christian cults
Isis –
originating in Egypt and spreading to the Greek world, Isis was the Sorrowing Mother, the Loving Comforter, the bearer of the gift of eternal life.” She was married to Osiris who died and had risen from the dead. It spread to each of the great cities in pre-Roman times. It was one of the closest pagan cults to Christianity that followed. Will Durrant’s’ Caesar and Christ, the Hellenistic revival, Caesar and Christ page 523
Dionysus
Well before the time of the birth of Jesus, “Egypt, Asia Minor, and Hellas had long since believed in gods – Osiris, Attis, and Dionysus – who had died to redeem mankind. Caesar and Christ page 523

Judas Maccabeus and revolt of the Jews
in 143 BC, Simon Maccabee obtained the independence of Judah from Roman rule. Romans laid siege in 63 BC. The Romans perceived that the Jews would not fight on the Sabbath, they were right, and they took control of Jerusalem and the Temple. They then exacted an expensive indemnity from Judea.

Thereafter, Judea was ruled by Herod the Great, appointed by Rome to rule it. Herod was not himself a Jew, but he sought a cultural unity, encouraging Greek ways dress, and ideas.
Thereafter, Rome was very cautious to limit the possibilities of a further bid for independence of Judea.

The Roman Empire
Attributes of Caesar and other Roman rulers, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant:
Augustus himself became one of the chief competitors of his gods.… Caesar had been recognized by the Senate as a deity, and his worship spread throughout the empire. As early as 36 BC some Italian cities had given Octavian a place in their pantheon; by 27 BC his name was added to those of the gods .… And after his death the Senate decreed that his genius or soul, was thereafter to be worshiped as one of the official divinities.
…
When Augustus visited Greek Asia in 21 BC he found that his cult had made rapid headway there, dedications and orations hailed him as “Savior,” “Bringer of Glad Tidings,” “God the Son of God”; some men argued that in him was the long awaited Messiah, bringing peace and happiness to mankind.
Caligula’s final pleasantry was to announce himself as a God, equal to Jupiter himself.… He set up a temple to his Godhead, with a core of priests and a supply of select victims, and he appointed his favorite horse is one of the priests. Caesar and Christ P.268
The Pharisees and the Sadducees – taken from the International Version
The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the two major religious groups in Israel at the time of Christ. The Pharisees were more religious minded, while the Sadducees were more politically minded. Although the groups disliked and distrusted each other, they became allies in their common hatred for Jesus.”

Characteristics of each group taken from notes of the New International Version:

The Pharisees were committed to obey God’s commandments; they were admired by the common people for their piety, they believed in bodily resurrection and eternal life, they believed in angels and demons; however, they behaved as though their religious rules were just as important as God’s commandments. Their piety was often hypocritical. They believed salvation was attainable by perfect obedience to the law and was not based on forgiveness of sins. They were obsessed with their laws, which deflected their attention from God’s mercy and grace.
The Sadducees believed strongly in the Mosaic law and in Levitical purity. They were more practically minded than the Pharisees. They relied on logic, placing little importance on faith. They did not believe that all the Old Testament was God’s word. They did not believe in bodily resurrection or eternal life. They did not believe in angels nor demons. They were often willing to compromise their values with the Romans to maintain their status and position.
The contribution of Paul, Caesar and Christ the Apostles at page 588

“Paul created the theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ: that every man born of woman inherits the guilt of Adam, and can be saved from eternal damnation only by the death of the Son of God.… Egypt, Asia minor, and Hellas had long since believed in gods – Osiris, Attis, Dionysus – who had died to redeem mankind; such titles as Savior and Deliverer had been applied to these deities; and the word Lord, used by Paul of Christ, was the term given in Syrian – Greek cults to the dying and redeeming Dionysus.
The contribution of John: ibid., at 595

… John, having lived for two generations in a Hellenistic environment, sought to give a Greek philosophical view to the mystic Jewish doctrine that the Wisdom of God was a living being, and to the Christian doctrine that Jesus was the Messiah. Consciously or not, he continued Paul’s work of detaching Christianity from Judaism.

A distinction between “Jesus” and “the Christ.”

Jesus refers to the earthly human: Jesus. “The Christ” refers to the religious meaning of Jesus’ life, i.e. The Son of God, the Sacrificial Lamb.

Of early Christianity and paganism, Caesar and Christ the Apostles, ibid. at 595 writes:
Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it.… The Greek language… became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the impressive mystery of the mass. Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretistic result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine Trinity, the Last Judgment, and a personal immortality of reward and punishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child.… From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria in the resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving God. From Persia came millenarianism, the “ages of the world,” the “final conflagration,” the dualism of Satan and God, Of Darkness and Light; already in the fourth Gospel Christ is the “light shining in the darkness, and the darkness has ever put it out.” The Mithraic ritual so closely resembled the Eucharistic sacrifice of the mass that Christian fathers charged the devil with inventing the similarities to mislead frail minds. Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.
Will Durrant describes the agape love feast of the early Christians, Caesar and Christ apostles, 598:

On a Sabbath evening the dinner began and ended with prayer and scriptural readings, and the bread and wine were blessed by the priest. The faithful appear to have believed that the bread and wine were, or represented, the body and blood of Christ; the worshipers of Dionysus, Attis and Mithras had entertained like beliefs at the banquets where they ate the magical elements or symbols of their gods. The final ritual of the agape was the “kiss of love.”… Tertullian and others denounced it as having lead to sexual indulgences. [This would have been typical of the right of Dionysus] The Church recommended that the lip should not be opened in kissing, and that the kiss should not be repeated if it caused pleasure. In the third century the agape gradually disappeared.

My Christian Beliefs

I Christian Beliefs

I am. I know that I am in that I see and to some extent I know what I see; I think and to some extent I know what I think; I feel and to some extent I know what I feel; I smell and taste and to some extent I know what I smell and taste. However, I also recognize that at least on a subconscious level, I feel, I taste and I smell much more than I am conscious of. No one can do any of those things for me. In that, I am unique.

What I know is first perceived through my senses and processed by my brain; from that rudimentary start, the brain develops concepts and suppositions that become the building blocks of ideas and conversations with self and others.

The source of “I am”:

The physical “I am” is entirely the late organization of “stardust.” The organization of my stardust is largely dependent upon the most rudimentary of intermediary life forms, including scum and germs, apes, perhaps, and inherited genetics.

And, to say that “I am” is inadequate because neither I nor God is in fact merely existent, but I and God are in the process of becoming in so far as I or God is responsive to the world in which I live.

As to the rudiments of existence and God, I choose to follow the path that Spinoza laid down nearly 400 years ago as adopted and adapted by me:

Self Caused:

The notion of anything as self – caused is illogical, as something cannot cause itself without having an essence prior to that causation. Spinoza began with the problem of logic as applied to God. My belief concerning the subject is strongly influenced by Hans Kung in his book, Does God Exist? In that I recognize that the existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved: it is therefore a matter of choice. For myself, the existence of God gives me a sense of purpose and strength for living, therefore I choose God.

I cannot say that I have experienced the presence of God. Nonetheless, I choose to believe in that believing holds the possibility of a future relationship.

There is nothing logical that can be said about anything being “self – caused.” One can make an argument that the ultimate being is “self – caused” but any logical proof of that ultimate being, God, will always fall short. Likewise, there is no logical argument that can be made that there is nothing “self – caused;” I am faced with the choice: to believe that there is such being beyond me as opposed to there is not. I see the question stated another way: is life meaningful or is it not? My choice will affect how and what I do and who I will become; I choose meaning as opposed to no meaning.

Finite:

All physical existence is finite, having size, extent, and other physical characteristics attributable to it and the world in which we live in.

Substance:

Substance is part of the nature of all finite being, and it distinguishes one manifestation of the finite being, such as color or number, from another manifestations of finite being.

Mode:

Mode of being is the manner in which finite being is manifested.

God:

I accept Spinoza’s notion of God as absolutely infinite. There can be no attributes of infinity. Attributes describe the substance and quality of things in existence, and therefore cannot themselves be infinite.

I do not wish to characterize God as Spinoza concluded, as coextensive with nature; that is a conclusion that I am not yet ready to make. I see it as unduly limiting the notion and the experience of God. I accept that one’s experience of God is greatly affected by one’s experience of their own father. For myself, I had polio at the age of 11 months and was hospitalized and isolated from my parents for a period of six months. I have spent a lifetime, 67 years, living with the sense of abandonment. My positive relationship with loving parents has not changed that. Likely, that is a contributing cause my inability to sense the presence of God. And understand that could change, and I permit the possibility not foreclosing the notion of my experience of God.

Free:

Therefore, nothing finite can be free and to the extent that anything is otherwise free, it must be infinite in nature to be self – contained.

Eternity:

Nothing physical can be eternal, as all physical being must have a beginning, and therefore, logically, an end. Eternal must be beyond physical being and therefore necessarily part of the existence of God.

The nature of physical being:

Logically, if physicality has a definite beginning, that being in God, then God must also have a beginning whatever that may be.

Christianity:

First, Orthodox dogma and I assert that Jesus was human, i.e finite.

I find that the acceptance that Jesus was human effects how I read the synoptic Gospels: as the story of a human being with my can relate.

I was raised as a Christian, and it is with Christianity that I relate at the core of my being. I agree with Matthew Fox that I am best served to stay with that which I am familiar (i.e., Christianity) rather than straying after things with which I have had no familiarity (i.e, Greek Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.)

Jesus

It is the human Jesus with whom I most relate. In that I have been heavily influenced by Spinoza, Schweitzer, and Schillebeeckx.

I have heard and reject the notion that because Jesus was with God and was God, he had superhuman powers to do what is humanly impossible, and therefore cannot be expected of we mere humans.

I believe that the historical Jesus can best be found in the synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of John is heavily influenced by Gnosticism in that it perceives Jesus as spirit more than just physical and human. I believe that the Gospel of John best expresses the notion of man made in the image of God, more specifically, Jesus made in the image of God. In the same sense, we each are a son or daughter of God.

I believe that the apostle Paul can best be understood as making the Jesus story accessible to the Greek world, using Greek experiences culture, and more specifically, Greek religious practices, as, for example, the Dionysian rites. One must be careful, I think, about changing the historical Jesus according to the preaching and writing of Paul. In I Corinthians 13, Paul held, consistent with the teaching of Jesus, that of all of the spiritual gifts, the greatest is love. With that, I agree.

I see Jesus in the light of civil disobedience, including his paying the ultimate sacrifice willingly in his appearance before Pilate, his trial, the scourge, and his death on the cross.

I see evidences of resurrection in the personal experiences that reminded people of Jesus’ life with them, as the experience on the road to Emmaus, and his disappearance upon recognition.

Jesus taught, “by their fruits you will know them; a good fruit is not fall from a bad tree, nor a bad fruit from good tree.”

A great emphasis of Protestantism is about being saved by faith in Jesus as the son of God. However, Jesus taught, “inasmuch as you did it down to the least of these, you did it to me.” And, so far as being saved, salvation was not in  obtained by a state of belief, but rather by a state of doing. Those that loved others were invited into the kingdom of God; those that did not love others were excluded from the kingdom of God.

As to the kingdom of God, it was not a future event. Rather, “the kingdom of God is at hand,” during the time of Jesus life and continuing to the present day.

Christ

The Christ is the meaning of the life of Jesus- what we attach to it.

As to the great “I am” of Orthodox Christianity, I am greatly influenced by Eric from who says that the Jewish Yahweh is better understood in the imperfect sense of the verb to be: I am becoming. That, I think, is one of the sources of the notion of the living God which pervades much of the Old Testament. That makes sense to me, and I adopt it.

My Experience of God

I have never felt a direct experience with God. The closest I came to that was when about age 20 I went with Mom and Dad to the second day of a week of evangelical services at a local church. In that experience, I felt very much betrayed. The evangelist was stirring the crowd, and I felt moved. After the emotional manipulation, he asked all to close their eyes as he prayed. I closed my eyes. Then he asked those who would like for him to pray for them to raise their hands. I felt that was noble thing. Who wouldn’t want another to pray for them? So I raised my hand. When he was done praying, he asked those who had raised their hands to come down to the front of the church. I had raised my hand, he knew that I had raised it, and so I obeyed. As I went, I realized that either others who had raised their hands were disobeying him, or that I was his prize for the night. I played along with his game, and when done, I returned home with mom and dad. There was no further mention of that.

About a year ago, as I was writing for my blog, I noted that I did not have a sense of a personal relationship with God, although I did not disavow the reality of God – just a lack of a sense of connection. In my post, I acknowledge that I wondered if that impersonal relationship might have been affected by my experience of abandonment in infancy from my six-month polio hospitalization at 11 months of age. I never had any response to that post.

And so, my perception of God is that “God” is beyond anything that I can imagine. I see a remarkable world about me and I experience to some degree a sense of awe – but that, more intellectual than as a matter of feeling. And so, although I am familiar with the notion of grace, I have never had a sense of the need of grace. The God that I know is not particularly personal, and I resist in concept a notion of a God who keeps score for which grace might have some significance.

I have noted at various times through my life that I am the recipient of many good things that I did not deserve, never even thought about, as though they were generous gifts.  Many of those have far exceeded anything I might have imagined. For those, in concept, at least, I am thankful.

I pray each day, but don’t know why other than that I ought to think of others.  And I have faced great difficulties.  They are not matters to pray about, but for me to suck it up and get to work to overcome. And, perhaps influenced by my preverbal survival of polio, I have a confidence that I can survive, but not necessarily to thrive. To that degree, I can adjust.

Examining Fundamentalist Beliefs and How My Own Differ

I want to examine my friend’s statements to me, not to disprove them, but to help clarify my own beliefs in relation to fundamentalist Christian beliefs in America. In doing so, I will address each of my friend’s main points, it’s premises and my beliefs concerning those premises:

All human beings are sinful; and more specifically, our sinful nature is inherited from Adam’s own sin (called Original Sin).

I would agree that humankind is sinful, not in an inherited sense, but in an active sense. In college, years ago, Dr. Nida taught me the definition of sin as “anything that separates us from the love of God.” I do not see God as the “old man scorekeeper in the sky,” but as a power of becoming in the world, transcendent, in all history, in the present, and in all times to come. God can be experienced in part by a sense of awe and gratitude.

I must ask, if God is creator and has made the rules by which his creation operates, surely he can change the rules and save His Son from paying the price for the sin of others. Moreover, the God of the Old Testament forgives and punishes, with no reference to any unpaid penalties due to the disobedience of Adam. Why would he stop forgiving with the New Testament?

and we need someone to “pay” for our sin: someone must pay the price of our sin, of our inherited sinful nature.

The common Christian notion is that, according to the second creation story told in the second chapter of Genesis, Adam sinned by disobeying God and eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

I do not understand that story in a literal sense. Rather, it asserts that humankind knows the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, and because they know that, they cannot live in a paradisiacal garden, free of strife. According to the Genesis account, Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden lest they also eat of the tree of life and “become as the gods.”

The story is a statement of the human condition. All life is “designed” for self-preservation, individually, and for social preservation of the life systems of which it is part. More specifically, the condition of humanity is that we must balance self-interest with dependence within our life system. That is part of the existential crisis that we human beings must face.

In my view, sin is not something that must be “paid for.” but it has its natural consequences. The problem of the consequences of sin is not black and white anthropomorphic intervention in life, but a matter of balance: self and others; physical needs and spiritual needs.

I see several problems with this assumption. First, if God is omnipotent, and if there were such rules of paying the price for sinfulness, then God could accept that as part of human existence (the constant tension among self-interest and social reliance and social responsibility); it is unavoidable.

If God is absolutely holy and demands righteousness who can measures up?

I do not see God as a superior humanoid who demands righteousness when the human condition precludes a clear answer between self and others, self responsibility and social responsibility.

Moreover, the above statement refers to righteousness as an objective state of being, a thing. I see righteousness as an active social state of being in right relationships with others and with our environment. That balance is also constantly shifting. It’s just part of the human condition.

That is the point of Jesus, God, who became man, condescending to rescue us all.

The above statement starts with the premise that Jesus is God-come-down-to-earth-to-pay-the-price-of-our-sinful-nature, to rescue us from our sinful state.

I see Jesus as a human being, like we, “made in the image of God,” according to the first creation story in Genesis. I see the statement that Jesus was both fully God and fully man as an illogical creedal statement deriving from bewildering facts: an experience of life of a loved one after death. It is derived from perception and feelings concerning a loved one who has died, i.e. Jesus.

There is danger in the fundamentalists’ assertion Jesus is God, in which case the hard sayings of Jesus are not taken seriously because he was God and we are human.

The above statement also suggests that God has a grand plan for all mankind. I don’t know what that means, but I have seen the argument used to fill in the gaps of human understanding, even to escape responsibility as a predestined act. It also has been used to dismiss the pain of loss.

We cannot (nor do we really want to) be good enough.

I don’t understand the above statement except that the great theme of fundamentalist Christianity is that humankind can never be good enough (to earn salvation).. This statement relates to prior statements that Jesus paid the price for us because we could not be good enough to pay it ourselves.

I am more moved by Jesus command to love and not to judge. It’s not a question of being good enough to deserve a theological intervention on our behalf.

Christians believe they are sinful, they can do nothing to deserve God’s favor and believe that Christ, God in the flesh) died to pay that penalty.

I see this argument as a summary of the last several arguments. The human condition is not a penalty for inherited sin or actual sin apart from our own actions. Human condition is what it is: recognizing our own limitations and mortality, sense of something within us that transcends our physical existence, need and desire act in our own interest, yet at the same time being insufficient to provide our own needs and our own dependence upon others and our own social responsibilities.

Hence, ‘by their fruits they shall know them.

I cannot disagree except for the implied condition in the foregoing statements that one must first “be saved.” I see the statement as unconditional, particularly because its context was the observations of the disciples of Jesus that others were doing miracles but not in the name of Jesus. Jesus response was basically, “Don’t worry about it; by their fruits you will know them.”

Our actions are a natural outcome of the love we have for Jesus who loved us, died for us and loves all people. We want to love those He also loves.

I see the above statement as implicitly connected with the statement in the Gospels: “we love because he first loved us.” I do not know whether humans are capable of loving only because Jesus first loved us. I have heard it said that hatred has to be learned and does not default nature of human beings. On the other hand, I do see Jesus in many emotional states, including angry outbursts, but most of all for his loving and I’m judging acts and teachings.

If we do not believe we need a savior we are damned already, and do not know ourselves.

I acknowledge that we as individuals are in fact not only responsible for ourselves, but are dependent and have social responsibilities that goes with our dependence. I understand “need a savior” as relating to damnation, as it is in fact used in the sentence.

It seems to me that the outstanding characteristic of Christians is that they know intensely that they need to be forgiven and that they trust Jesus to keep his word that he has covered their sinfulness with His righteousness.

I would say that the outstanding characteristic of Jesus teachings are 1 love, and 2 do not judge. I see my friend’s statement, “that they trust Jesus to keep his word that he has covered their sinfulness with His righteousness” as an allegorical statement cast in theological robes.

Don’t forget Jesus also said “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.” John 10:9.

The context of my friend’s’s citation is John 10:7-10:

⁷ Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.⁸ All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. ⁹ I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.^[a]They will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

A related and similar citation is John 14:6 – 10:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you really know me, you will know^[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

⁹ Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

These two passages are often cited by fundamentalist Christians to support their assertion that there is salvation only through Jesus. Used in this way, “salvation” has a particular theological significance relating to a notion that humanity has been lost and needs to be found by a power greater than themselves. That higher power is Jesus.

One of the mistakes of this statement is that it fails to recognize the distinction between the historical Jesus and the Christian interpretation of that Jesus as “the Christ:” “the promised one” of the ancient prophets.

I cannot help but ask about the many more around the world who are not Christian and yet do good works in the name of another, be at Mohammed, Krishna, Buddha, or another.

The God that I know is not an exclusionist. Nor are these passages wholly consistent with the synoptic Gospels in which Jesus does not insist upon doing good in his name, only. Rather, he tells us “by their fruits you will know them;” and “inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, my brethren, you did it unto me. Enter into your reward.”

To understand someone we love we need to pay attention to all they say and do.

The presumption of the above statement is that the whole Bible is literally true, and that the sum of all that the Bible says about Jesus is accurate and cumulative. I note that among the four Gospels there are inconsistencies in the accounts of similar events as well as in their order. I believe that the gospel accounts are more than a mere historical documentation of the historical Jesus. See Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus, in which he demonstrates that the historical Jesus eludes us, but that the significance of Jesus’ life is inescapable. I take that to mean that Jesus teachings concerning “the way” is significant rather than the historical documentation to be found in the Gospels.

My interpretation of the Gospels is that it includes all and excludes none.

Inclusive Christianity: Dialogue With a Christian Fundamentalist

It has been some time since I have felt motivated to do any writing. On the other hand, I have for some time in recent years had a desire to address what I have called “inclusive Christianity,” and to help those of other faiths know that I consider them to be spiritual brothers and sisters.

A friend had posted a video clip of an atheistic scientist who became a Christian. She and I traded some emails concerning that clip. Ultimately, I responded as follows:

I will try to answer your question. [Bignon] cited Genesis 1:2 and the creation story in the Bible referring to specific days of creation. That is the first story of creation in the Bible. The second immediately follows at Genesis 2:4. In it, there is a different order of creation: Adam, a garden, animals, and then creation of Eve from the rib of Adam. Mainstream Christianity has generally focused only on the latter portion in which, when man eats of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, he cannot live in Eden any longer. That is a description of the human condition.

I am probably more simpleminded than some people view me. For me, the root of Christianity is to be found not in Paul, but in the synoptic Gospels. I do not doubt the existence of the historical Jesus. My first question has to do with the actions of a Jesus follower, and, secondly, what about those who do good works but are not a Jesus follower? Matthew tells us that the disciples told Jesus that there were some who were not followers that were doing good works. Jesus said in essence, “Don’t worry about it. Good fruit does not fall from a bad tree. By their fruits you will know them.” And then, Matthew reports in the 25^th chapter, “Inasmuch as you did it for the least of these, you did it for me.” But there is more, seldom acknowledged: “Inasmuch as you did not do it for the least of these, you did not do it for me:” the former are rewarded, and the latter, whatever their professions of faith, are punished. That, to my mind, is the gospel in a nutshell.

When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, he said there were two: love God and like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself. Pretty simple.

My friend replied with the following, which is typical of mainstream, more conservative, Christianity in the United States:

The central idea of the gospel, and the reason Jesus died is that all human beings are sinful and we need someone to “pay” for our sin. If God is absolutely holy and demands righteousness who measures up? That is the point of Jesus, God, who became man, condescending to rescue us all. We cannot (nor do we really want to) be good enough. Christians believe they are sinful, they can do nothing to deserve God’s favor and believe that Christ, God in the flesh) died to pay that penalty. In thanksgiving they do the best they can to show God’s love. Hence, “by their fruits they shall know them.” Our actions are a natural outcome of the love we have for Jesus who loved us, died for us and loves all people. We want to love those He also loves. If we do not believe we need a savior we are damned already, and do not know ourselves. It seems to me that the outstanding characteristic of Christians is that they know intensely that they need to be forgiven and that they trust Jesus to keep his word that he has covered their sinfulness with His righteousness. Don’t forget Jesus also said “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved..” John 10:9. To understand someone we love we need to pay attention to all they say and do.

I replied:

[Friend], unlike St. Paul and Mr. Wood, I can’t claim a sudden, stunning brilliant light or revelation. In retrospect, I would have to say that my faith has developed [gradually] over the years to what it is today. Theological argument, even that of St. Paul, has little meaning to me. Nonetheless, some of St. Paul’s writing has resonated with me, particularly the 13^th chapter of 1^st Corinthians: of all the spiritual gifts, all would be hollow without love.

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In Matters of Religion, Is There a Right and a Wrong?

Right belief?

When I was growing up in the America of the 50s, I would have acknowledged, if asked, four primary religious groups in America: 1. The religion of my family: Protestant, and more specifically, Seventh Day Baptist. 2. Catholic. 3. Judaism. 4. Atheistic.  In the 80s, I recognized a large number of Latter-Day Saints in America, and even among my friends; in the 90s, I came to realize that there are also Buddhists in America; and in the 2000’s, following 9 – 11, I came to recognize a substantial community of Muslims in America.

I suspect that members of each religion would believe that it is true, else they would abandon that religion for an other which bore the Truth. And likely there would be a significant number of each such religions that believed their religion is true, exclusive of all others.

As I have stated before, I am a Christian: not a Christian fundamentalist, but a follower of Christ. Christianity has great meaning to me because that is my inheritance from which I grew and judge my growth. I see in Christianity what is likely a conversation that abounds in all other religions: not a question, but an assertion that our religion is true (that is a given); and secondly a question: is there any truth in any of the other religions or Christian denominations?

But then, what Is Truth?  Is it to be found only through religion?

What is religion? Is its significance to be found in a set of beliefs?  If so, beliefs about what? Are such beliefs grounded in human life and experience, or are they separate from such experience or above it?

My view of the truths of religion, any religion or denomination is heavily influenced by Eric Fromm: religion is anything that gives one a sense of orientation and an object of devotion. For him, as for myself, religion springs from human experience and guides life choices. Religion cannot be divorced from life experience without serious destructive consequences. Rather, our religion will inform us of what conduct is expected and right.

 

Right conduct?

Growing up, right conduct was taught me by my parents and by our denominational beliefs of what is right and what is wrong. In my mature years I have come to believe in a more simple guide to right conduct: does it bear good fruit? Does it care about the lives and circumstances of all others? Does it care about our environment here on earth?

As a Christian, I believe that right conduct is described in the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have others do unto you; in Jesus’ teaching in the “Sermon on the Mount; his teaching that right conduct bears good fruit; and his teaching, as described in the 25^th chapter of Matthew: “inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, my brethren, you did it unto me.”  Such conduct is described not only in Christianity, but in each of the major religions, and even among agnostics and atheists.

We are truly one.

The Heavens Are Telling the Glory

The heavens are telling the glory of God,

Of Allah, of Krishna,

of the divine,

of the extraordinary in the mundane.

Are you watching?

Are you listening?

It tolls for you!

Our Living God

During my 66 years of life, I never addressed specifically the question, “is there a God or is there not?” Even when I thought about religious ideas, I was not constructing a new religion, but rather, I was learning that the dogma of any Christian or other religious group is merely an attempt to express in words the elusive Truth.

One of the early influences upon my thinking was Eric Fromm: beginning with The Art of Loving, then The Dogma of Christ, and, in particular, his essay on Psychoanalysis and Religion. In the latter Fromm posits that a healthy religion is necessary to healthy mental, psychological, and emotional being. I have never lost that conviction; rather, it has informed my reading and my questioning.

I mentioned dogma: dogma is not the truth, but the crystallization of notions of truth and right living.  We humans must use words. Likewise, any notion of God is insufficient to define or to find God. As an associate pastor preached, she learned in seminary that whatever notion you have of God, God is more.

When we consider any notion of life after death, words are also inadequate to describe it. Indeed, although we often hear of “near death experiences,” no one has actually died, the body decayed, and the spirit returned to tell of the experiences of the afterlife. There are dreams about the afterlife. Indeed, Heaven Is Real is about one child’s experience in dreams. The book and the movie can only be told in words and images, each of which is inadequate to present a humanly comprehensible view of whatever the is the afterlife.

That is even true of the Bible. As Moses Maimonides held, whatever we can say are the positive attributes of God, such affirmations are inadequate to describe God. If we use words, only a description of “negative attributes” can point away from what God is not toward the ineffable, inexpressible experience of God.  That is what I understand Eric Fromm to say: the Jewish name for God, Yahweh, literally refers to a living God; not just “I am,” as the King James Bible recounts, but rather to the living God expressed as “I am becoming.” That is what it means to live.

Perhaps that attempt of human beings with concrete experiences and imaginations to refer to whatever being there is beyond death can be told best by a good friend. It was in our Sunday school class. She told of the death of her parents in an auto crash. Her parents were coming from a casino where they had enjoyed great success. My friend said that she imagined them in heaven, enjoying that experience. I responded, “I thought you did not believe in a literal heaven.”  “I don’t, literally; but that is what I imagine.”

That may seem like a stretch for some, but in my Christian experience, it is common for people to tell of heaven as, for example, having“streets of gold.” Do they literally mean that heaven has streets of gold or is it an expression of how precious heaven, the afterlife, is?  Is it any different than the jihadist notion of martyrdom by which one can sacrifice one’s life in jihad by killing others (infidels from there perspective) as well as oneself for which they are promised reward from Allah, such as many virgins in the afterlife.

You may notice that I have titled this Our Living God.  I hope that what immediately follows  may be inspiring  to others of all religions  or  those claiming no religion .  Here is my present challenge:  to  practice the presence of God.

I’m Back!

 

 

My friends, some may notice that in recent months I have not been active in this blog. The blog contains my own story, Getting over Childhood: An Abandonment Paradox; also, my own faith journey, If with All Your Hearts You Truly Seek Me: A Faith Journey. That, indeed, has been a journey.

Since the last post, I have experienced  first, debilitating fatigue and then increasing depression, likely relating to multiple sclerosis and post polio syndrome.  About six months ago I became aware of the emotional and psychological challenges of post polio syndrome, which, perhaps, can best be described  as an obsessive compulsive disorder  relating to our survival of polio. I have been struggling with medications since then.

Three weeks ago, I was hospitalized for depression for three days, during which my psychiatrist  was able to observe me and to adjust medications.  I have felt  empowered since then,  but  was afraid  last night and today that I might be slipping back into depression and anxiety . This is my attempt to surmount those difficulties and  that of aging (66).

Inclusive Christianity

In the last several posts, I have addressed early stories in the Bible which are shared, or were shared, with others around the world, unconnected with the writing of the Bible. My intention is to show that the basic biblical stories are not exclusive to the Bible, but are broadly shared. Ultimately, I hope to show that inclusive Christianity is not only possible, but that it is also inescapable in the larger “picture.”

It is difficult to know the source of many of our deeply held convictions. Likewise, my conviction of “inclusive Christianity.” I can see the roots of my convictions both in the Christian fundamentalist background of the churches of my youth and my learning in college, both college classes and independent reading.  A number of years ago I was given a book by our associate pastor: Open Christianity: Home by Another Road, by Jim Burklo. At my first reading, it rang true with my experience, giving words to it. As I reviewed it recently, it very much is reflective of my own Christian convictions, so I will share those.

Burklo, a college chaplain, writes,

Christianity is defined by a road that is hard for everyone who walks it. It is defined by the struggle of Jesus and his followers to love against all odds.  A Christian is a person who fails in divine love, fails to love 1000 times, and each time is resurrected by divine grace to love once again.

He sees Christian dogma as a roadblock for many thoughtful people.  He writes,

Does God really expect us to believe things that require the suspension of our God – given good sense…?

People succeed in believing the unbelievable much more often than they succeed in loving the unlovable.

I was especially disturbed by the claim that Christianity is the one and only true religion.

This book is a meeting place between Christians who are leaving strict orthodoxy behind, and non—Christians who hope to discover Christianity’s rare treasures and enlightening practices.

For Burklo, there are two essentials of Christianity: love God and your neighbor as yourself.  I know this is shared by many other religious teachings.

One of the challenges of Christianity in these days is to sort out what are essentially theological stumbling blocks that may have had a purpose in their day, but are no longer useful to Christian practice. Too often, theological niceties have defined a religious following and are maintained merely to continue that identification.

Burklo writes of “the everyday discipline of knowing God.”  I had never thought of it as a discipline, but I am convinced of its truth.

He speaks of visiting Russia when it was under Communists rule. He found that he and the obligatory communist guide had more in common spiritually than he would have expected:

We walked together, a committed Christian and a committed atheist, sharing a common experience but using different language to express it.…the reality that I called God and that he called wonder.

…

Just because the gospel is at the heart of Christianity, it does not mean it belongs only to Christianity.

Jacob’s Vision of the Ladder

Genesis 28

Jacob has cheated his twin brother, Esau, and his birth right; and he has cheated his father, Isaac, of the blessing intended for Esau. Esau is furious, and Jacob flees. The first night, Jacob awakes suddenly, is terrified, and exclaims, “God is here!” “This is no other than God’s house; this is the gate of heaven.” In the morning, filled with awe as, he erects a stone as a memorial pillar to God in gratitude of the blessings he has received that night. He names the place “Beth-el”, or “house of God”.

The Protestant interpretation of the story, as I have come to know it, is simply that God has chosen to bless Jacob, despite his dishonesty; and God tells him in his dream that night. Nothing more. Dreams are one way that God uses to speak to us.  If we face the facts and dare to claim the obvious in this passage, clearly the dream connects earth with heaven; a ladder ascending and descending between the two.

The imagery of this passage is common in the ancient world. A cave painting associated with the Persian God, Mithras, depicts souls descending to earth then returning to heaven through “the seven planetary spheres.”There are Egyptian sculptures also depicting souls ascending and descending from heaven to earth on a ladder.  Likewise in India.

The pillar of stone that Jacob erected at the site is similar to other forms of phallic worship in the ancient world.

There is a related notion of the transmigration of souls taught not only by Jews, but also by Indians, Buddhists, and other areas world, including the Americas. It is also evident in the New Testament.  In Mark 8:27, 28 Jesus asked his disciples, “whom do men say that I am?” ²⁸ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”  In John 9:1, 2, upon seeing a man who was blind from birth, the disciples asked Jesus who sinned, the blind man or his parents. The question itself suggests a principle of transmigration of the souls, since the man had been blind since birth, and by implication, could only have sinned in a former state. See also Matthew 17.  Such a notion was common in Hinduism, Buddhism, ancient Egypt, even in North America and Mexico.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

The Trial of Abraham’s Faith

Genesis 22:1 – 19 tells us that the Lord God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac to the Lord. Abraham obeyed, and was preparing to kill assignment lame on the altar when God, saw “that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.” Thereupon Abraham saw a man caught in a thicket provided by God as a substitutionary sacrifice. And because of Abraham’s faithfulness, God tells him that he will have descendents as the stars in the sky and as the sand upon the shores; and that in his name all of the nations of the earth will be blessed.

A Hindoo story tells that King Hariscandra prayed to Varuna for a son, promising to sacrifice the child to the God. He was granted a son, named Rohita.  In time, Varuna called upon him to prepare the sacrifice. Rohita was not about to offer himself as a sacrifice, so he ran away.  He wandered for six years when he happened upon a starving Brahmin who had six sons. Rohita’s way did the man self him one of his sons for 100 cows. Scented the boy to his father as a substitutionary sacrifice. While praying to the gods from the Veda, the gods released him from promise.  There is a similar ancient Phoenician story, and three Grecian stories of similar accounts of the gods demanding a human sacrifice and then offered in animal in its place.

The story of Abraham and Isaac written at a time when “the Mosaic party in Israel” was attempting to eradicate idolatry from the Israelites. Human sacrifices were made to the gods Moloch, Baal, and Chemosh. Eric Fromm, the noted author and psychiatrists, makes similar note.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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The Tower of Babel

After the flood the whole earth spoke one language. And they determined to build a city with the tower to make a name for themselves. The Lord God came to see what man was doing and saw the city and the tower and felt threatened by it: “the ways they are starting to behave, nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and some confuse their speech that they cannot make out each other’s words.” Genesis 11:1 – 7.

In a Chaldean account, mankind is impressed with its size and its power and decide to build a tower to the heavens. The gods are frightened and confound their speech. During the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, high towers were built and used as observatories, but there was no connection between them and fear of the gods.  The Mexicans have a story similar to the Tower of Babel; likewise the Armenians and the Hindu.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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Early Generations and the Flood

The fifth chapter of Genesis gives account of the early generations descending from Adam. We are told of each that they lived an exceptionally long time by present human standards: Adam lived 930 years, his son, Seth, live 105 years, Enosh 905 years, and Enoch lived 365 years during which he “walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”  Genesis 5:24.

In the next chapter, Genesis 6:2, 4 we are told, “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.… There were giants in the earth in those days, and also… mighty men… men of renown.” KJV.

In Genesis 6:11, 12, we are told that mankind had become corrupt and violent. Therefore, God decided to destroy all life on earth, humankind and animal, by a great flood.  However, one man, Noah, found favor with God and God decided to save Noah and his family, and through Noah to save remnants of animal life.

In Genesis 6:14 – 16, God tells Noah the material and the manner in which he is to make the art which will save his family and select animals. In Genesis 6:19-22, Noah is told to gather two of every living thing, and gather sufficient food to keep them alive on the ark. Noah obeyed.

In Genesis 7:2 – 4, God tells Noah to gather seven of each clean animal and two of those that are not clean; he is to gather by sevens foul, and in seven days the flood will begin. Noah obeyed.

Then, “were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights.” Genesis 7:11 – 12. It rained for the number of days signifying trial, tribulation, and purification: 40.

To the writers of this biblical story, there were two sources of the waters.  It was not “just rain.” Rather, two great sources of water were tapped: the windows of the heavens and the fountains of the great deep were opened. This cosmological view was maintained, even to the time of Jesus.

Thereafter, “the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. The rains began in the second month and the waters decreased sufficiently that the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat on the on the 17^th day of the seventh month. Genesis 8:2 – 4.

The waters continued to recede. On the first day of the 10^th month, the tops of the mountains became visible. After 40 days, Noah opened the window of the ark and released a Raven that flew “back and forth” until “the water had dried up from the earth.” Noah then sent out a dove, but the dove could find no place to perch “because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark.” He waited another seven days and sent a dove out again. This time it returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf. Noah waited yet another seven days, sent the dove out, and it did not return.  “By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.” God then told Noah to come out of the ark. Genesis 8:6 – 16. Noah built an altar and sacrificed to the Lord. God promised never to destroy life upon the earth again “as I have done.” And as a sign of that covenant, God set a rainbow in the sky. Genesis 9:12 – 15.

Flood stories abound in many civilizations around the world. The Chaldean story accords closely to that of the Bible. There are Assyrian clay tablets that tell a similar story. A similar story appears in Hindu sacred writings in which Satyavrata is the Noah figure, the righteous man, for whom a great ship is sent. The Chinese have a similar story of the opening of the vaults of heaven causing the whole earth to be flooded. Even in Greek mythology Zeus becomes disturbed by the violence of human society and destroys life with a flood. And Josephus, writing in the first century A.D., notes that the flood is a common element in Babylonian histories. Similar stories appear in Celtic and Scandinavian mythologies, even that of remote and isolated Mexico.  Some writers subscribe some basis to the stories because certain areas of the world, such as Nebraska, USA, abound in fossils of sea life despite its relatively high levels above sea level, which may have some influence in the formulation of these stories.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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Cain and Abel

The next Genesis story following the creation and the fall tells us that Eve conceived and bore a son, Cain, and then a son, Abel.  Cain was a farmer (“Tiller of the ground”), and Abel was “a keeper of sheep.” Genesis 4:1, 2. KJV. In time, Cain sacrificed some of his crop to the Lord; and Abel brought of his first and fat of his flock as a sacrifice. The Lord respected Abel’s sacrifice, but he had no respect for Cain’s.

Cain became very angry that the Lord respected Abel’s sacrifice but not his own. The Lord asked Cain why he was so angry, and said to Cain, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

One day as Cain and Abel were and a field together, Cain killed Abel. Then the Lord asked Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” Cain responded in that famous denial-and-excuse, “I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?” God retaliated, “what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cries than to me from the ground.” And God condemned Cain to till the ground with meager production, and “a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” Genesis 4:9 – 12. Cain protested that his punishment was too great for him to bear and that “everyone that find if any shall slay me.”  However, the Lord protected Cain and promised to punish anyone who would hurt or kill Cain seven times the fence.

And so Cain escaped to the land of Nod, where he took a wife, who bore Enoch.

 

Other Stories of Cain and Abel

Stories abound in the ancient world on themes contained within the story of Cain and Abel: concerning sibling rivalry, more specifically that of brothers, herding societies versus agrarian societies, good against evil, strife between society and the individual, and the first murder as the ultimate violation of individuals within society. One source even interprets the story as an account of Homo sapien triumph over Neanderthal.  There are various Cain and Abel traditions, with slightly variant facts, such as their rivalry with regard to twin sisters. There are various New Testament references to Cain and Abel, including, Matthew 23:5; and Hebrews 12:24. The Muslims revere the grave of Habeel (Abel), according to Shia tradition.

According to Hittite mythology, the God, Anu murders his brother, Alal. In Samaria in mythology, two gods, the herding god, Dumuzi, vies with Enkimdu, the farmer god, for the the attention of the chief godess, Inanna. In Greek mythology, Acrisius and Proetus are twin brothers who hate and compete with each other from birth, much as Isaac and Esau.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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The Temptation and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

The Biblical Account of the Paradisiacal Garden, the Temptation, and Expulsion

The story of Paradise, the Garden of Eden, takes up where the second story of creation ends with a foreshadowing of what is to come:  “Now although the man and his wife were naked, neither of them was embarrassed or ashamed.” Genesis 2:25.

Genesis 3:1 begins, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”  King James Version.  That word, “subtil,” is old English for our present day “subtle.” The KJV dictionary offers the following definition: “1. Thin; not dense or gross; as subtil air and 2. Nice; fine; delicate. The Revised Standard Version settles for subtle; the Modern Language Version replaces it with “wiliest,” and the Living Bible Version uses “craftiest.”

The serpent then applies its skills: it asks the woman if the Lord God has told her they could not eat of the fruits from the trees in the garden. She answers that they may eat of any tree except of the tree “in the midst of the garden.” About that, she says, the Lord God instructed them not only not to eat it, but not even to touch it “lest ye die.” Genesis 3:2, 3. The serpent responds that they surely will not die, God has told them not to eat of it lest their eyes be opened, and they become “as gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5.

And so, the woman looked upon the fruit, it did look good for food and desirable “to make one wise.” So she took the fruit, ate of it, and gave it to her husband, who ate it, also. Genesis 3:6. And, indeed, their eyes were opened; they then realized that they were naked and covered themselves with aprons made of fig leaves. Genesis 3:7.

Then “they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day;” and they hid. Genesis 3:8. The Lord God called to Adam, “where art thou;” and Adam immediately excused himself: “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Lord God asked who told him that he was naked; and, had he eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree? And Adam, evidently realizing he’s in trouble, wastes no time shifting blame: “the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the fruit.” Lord God asks woman what she has done, and she responds with yet another shift of responsibility: “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

The Lord God punishes the serpent: because of what it did, it will thereafter be cursed above all beasts; and thereafter he shall move by slithering on its belly, and it will eat dust. Lord God told woman, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Then the Lord God said to Adam that the ground is cursed “for thy sake;” he shall eat sorrow, he shall eat of the herbs of the field, but thorns and thistles will confront him; and the bread he eats will be of the sweat of his face until he returns to the ground, from which he came. Genesis 3:14 – 19.  Adam called his wife Eve, “because she was the mother of all living.” God made for them clothes of “skins.”Lord God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil . . . ” Therefore God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden

to till the ground from whence he was taken;… And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Genesis 3:23, 24.

Joseph Campbell tells us of the mythological significance of “snake.”:

Snake is the symbol of life throwing off the past and continuing to live.… The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow.… Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That’s an image of life..… There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it thatway. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life.

Furthermore, the serpent represents the primary function of life, mainly eating. Life consists in eating other creatures[,  other life].

Campbell notes that in most cultures interpret the snake in a positive light. Even the cobra is a sacred animal in India; “and the mythological Serpent King is the next thing to the Buddha.”

American Indian traditions also revere the snake. The Hopi Indians perform a snake dance in which they hold the snakes in their mouths, make friends with them, and then send them back to the hills. The serpent represents the interplay of man and nature.

A serpent flows like water and so it is watery, but it’s tongue continually flashes fire. So you have the pair of opposites together in the serpent.

Likewise, Campbell tells us of the  mythological significance of  “woman.”

…  In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulses sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the world. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist that has been given to the whole story and the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.

Campbell considers that the Christian treatment of the serpent in the creation story as the seducer,

amounts to a refusal to affirm life. In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulses sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the world. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist that has been given to the whole story and the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.

Nowhere else in myth is a woman associated with the introduction of sin.

… The closest thing to it would be perhaps Pandora with Pandora’s box, but that’s not sin, that’s just trouble.

Joseph Campbell notes the geographical and historical significance of this story of  the temptation  and ” the fall.” When the Jews settled in Canaan, they entered a culture of the goddess, which was associated with the serpent. The serpent is the symbol for the mystery of life. The Israelites rejected the mystery for its own male – God – orientation. The biblical story of the temptation of the serpent, the symbol of mystery, and Eve’s, symbol of life, embraced  that mystery, then beguiling man to disobedience is a record of Jewish invader’s conquest of the female principle by the male. Is the sword at the entrance to the Garden of Eden, upon their expulsion from it, some reference to the power of the sword, war? Note the brutal history of the Jewish people, at times while they were in the wilderness, and then continuing with their entry into Canaan.

The biblical creation story introduces, right at the beginning, the unity and peacefulness of Eden which was rejected by the will of Eve and the weakness of man for the world of “pairs of opposites,” as Campbell describes it  Man cannot escape that world of opposites because, after the second story of the creation of Adam, and then Eve, man is stuck in the world of paired opposites because man cannot enter life except through woman.

Campbell calls the Garden of Eden the Garden of paradise, the Garden of Eden, which is a “mythological dreamtime zone” where man and woman are just creatures, unaware of their difference, and they walk with God, whose image they reflect. When they eat the apple they acquired the knowledge of opposites which evicts them from the “Garden of Timeless Unity” into the field of opposites.

Moyers asked why we think in terms of opposites, and Campbell answers, “because we can’t think otherwise.”

Dark and light, life and death, good and evil, man and woman, yes and no, true and false, temporal and eternal. All we can know is in the field of opposites. Myths tell us that there is something more than what we can see with our eyes, or think with our minds: a transcendent unity. The poet, Blake, wrote, “eternity is in love with the protections of time.” Moyers asks what that means.  Campbell responds,

The source of temporal life is eternity. Eternity pours itself into the world. It is a basic mythic idea of the God who becomes many in us. In India, the God who lives in me is called the “inhabitant” of the body. In to identify with that divine, immortal aspect of yourself is to identify yourself with divinity.

 

All things in the field of time are pairs of opposites. …

It’s a matter of planes of consciousness. It doesn’t have to do with anything that happened. There is a plane of consciousness where you can identify yourself with that which transcends pairs of opposites.

That which transcends the pairs of opposites is unnameable. It transcends language by which human kind names all objects and actions that it perceives.

Other Accounts of a Paradisical Garden, Temptation, and Eviction

The ancient Babylonians, 1,500 years before the biblical account, tell of a sacred garden, Anu, into which man and woman were placed, and which grew a tree of life, man and woman were expelled, and the tree of life was guarded by cherubim, and the entrance to the garden was guarded by a sword, turning to North, South, East, and West.

The Egyptian God, Ra, also created the world and planted a garden in which he also placed man and woman to live as gods. They were expelled from the Garden because of their “inquisitiveness,” to live in a world of sorrow and pain.

Each of the above stories preceded the writing of Genesis.

In Grecian mythology, Zeus breathed life into dolls of clay to make man; and he gave to man a beautiful woman, Pandora, brought with her a box that man was ordered to keep closed. Again, as in all of the other stories, the man disobeyed.  In the Greek myth, he opened the box to the doom of life’s troubles, but consoled with hope.

A Tibetan story also places man and woman in a sacred garden, and man is ordered not to eat a sweet herb.  As in the biblical story, they disobeyed, and ate the herb; they then recognized their nakedness, were evicted from the garden and made to rely upon the hard work of agriculture, and to endure the hardships of evil.

There is a story among the eastern African Negroes, a Calabar story of creation. Their god, Abasi, do promised to provide for them: all they had to do is ringing the bell at mealtime. Woman tempted the man to use tillage instruments; and he succumbed to that temptation to provide for themselves. Who thereafter, humankind was condemned to mortality and abandoned to reliance upon agriculture.

In a Persian story, the tree of Hom was not only the sacred tree of life, but also of resurrection. The Greeks had a story of the Garden of the Hesperides in which grew and a tree that bore fruit of Golden Apples of immortality. One of the tasks of Hercules was to collect those apples. But he first we had to overcome the Dragon which guarded the garden.

A Vedic story gives a poetic rendition of creation from nothing, no life, no time, no light; only darkness. Siva, the great God, tempts Brahma, not created, but just being, by dropping a blossom of the fig tree. That tree is known in Buddhism as “Tree of Knowledge” or “Tree of Intelligence.” The Chinese have a story and their scriptures, Che – King, of an Age of Virtue in which humankind was placed in a sacred garden with a tree bearing “apples of immortality.” All of humankind’s needs were provided them, and all was in harmony.  However, a woman tempted man with knowledge, and that desire through humankind into its own fallen state, a story similar to that of the notion of “original sin.”

A story of Madagascar are places humankind in a sacred garden about whom grows luscious fruit which is forbidden them.  And ties to buy a beautiful painting of the fruits, he ate and he fell.

The Tahitians of Polynesia have a story that man was made of red earth, it’s also provided him nourishment. Their god, Taarao created woman from one of his bones, whose name was Ivi, meaning “bone.”  The Scandinavians also have a story of a “Golden Age” that was also disrupted by woman.

Even the ancient Mexicans had a story of a garden of bliss, into which calms a woman and a snake who talk to each other. In their sacred images, Eve is depicted bearing twins. In southern India sacred carvings upon the columns of a temple shows an Ambrosio tree under which sit “the first couple,” and among its branches a snake that introduces the woman to delicious fruit, to which she is tempted and takes  it.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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The Biblical Worldview

In reading the first creation story, one can get caught up in unfamiliar vernacular with no particular meaning with which we can identify, and therefore dismissible as meaningless. In reality, it is expressive of a worldview that was maintained from the time of the early biblical writers through the New Testament.

That worldview was of the earth with its seas, below which was the primeval ocean, pillars of the Earth (Psalm 75:3), and foundations of the earth (Psalm 104:5, “he set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved;” Job 38:4, “where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” 1 Samuel 2:8, “For the pillars of the Earth are the Lord’s, and on them, he has set the world.”  Above the earth was the firmament with its stars, above that was another body of waters with “floodgates of heaven” (Genesis 7:11), the ocean of heaven (Psalm 148:4, “Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!”), and above that was the heaven of heavens.

In that view, “the ends of the earth” did not mean simply a long, long way, but literally, the ends of the disk of earth (Isaiah 41:9, “you I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners…;” Psalm 65:5, “O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas…;” Zechariah 9:10, “his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth;” Mark 13:27, “and then he will send out to the Angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”. In that worldview the earth did not move (Psalms 93:1; 104:5) and the sun did move across the skies, literally (Joshua 10:13; Ecclesiastes 1:5). There was an underworld, Sheol; reference the number of times throughout the Bible (Numbers 13:32 – 33 and the Psalms).Revelation 5:3, 13, “and no one in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth …;” Exodus 20:4, “you shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

A basic three – tiered system of the world is mentioned throughout the Bible, but, having no modern concept with which to relate it, the modern reader typically dismisses it without so much as a thought.

This same world view was shared throughout the Mesopotamian region. The Babylonian ziggurats were believed to have foundations extending well below the earth, into the underworld. Brian Godawa concludes, “Evidently, God did not consider it important enough to correct this primitive inaccurate understanding.”

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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The Creation

THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNTS OF CREATION

In the Bible there are two creation stories found in the first three chapters of Genesis:

The first creation story begins in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” King James Bible (which I use here, as few Christians would disclaim its authority). This is the familiar story, read and taken literally by many Christians and often times cited as an authority against contemporary scientific knowledge that may differ.

As a preface to the creation story, Genesis 1:2 states that “the earth was waste and void,” and “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (And so I am, by the second verse, challenged by the meaning of basic words that seem to be ambiguous at best and contradictory at worst .) On the first day, God created light by saying, “Let there be light; and there was light.” “And there was evening and there was morning, one day” – the first day.

On the second day “God said, let there be a firmament (which I used to think referred to something firm, seeming to reference the earth, but we learn in verse 8 that “God called the firmament Heaven”) “and let it divide the waters from the waters.” The firmament divided the waters “above” from that “below.” “And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.”

Each day of creation begins with “and God said, Let …” and God calls each days’ creation into existence. (Again, we see the power of the spoken word, and again we can find the basis of the Jewish prohibition against naming God: to name is to exert power over when humankind has no power over God. To attempt to do so would be blasphemy.)

On the third day God gathered the waters “under the heavens” into one place and dry land to appear in its midst. God called the dry lands Earth and the gathered waters into seas. And then God caused the earth to put forth vegetation bearing its own seed.

On the fourth day, God gathered the lights of heaven, dividing them into day and night (with the greater light ruling the day and the lesser light ruling the night; and God further organized the lights into seasons.

On the fifth day God created animal life, with birds to fly “above the earth in the open firmament of heaven,” and “great sea-creatures.”

On the sixth day, God caused the earth to “bring forth living creatures after their kind.” And on that same day, God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . “ Genesis 1:26, and God made both man and woman.  God creates “man” in God’s own image.  God finds it to be “good.” And when all is created at the end of the six day, God declared the whole creation to be “very good.”

The second creation story is Genesis 2:4 – 25. It begins with God creating the heavens and the earth.  And then God plants a garden, the Garden of Eden, and creates Adam to tend the it. In the second story, God also  breathes into man  the breath of life.  In the garden God is a tree of knowledge of good and evil, and also a tree of life. God commanded Adam not to eat of either tree.

Having planted the garden which Adam was to tend, God saw that Adam was alone, and it would not do for him to be lonely.  So God formed out of the ground all animal life, each of which was brought to Adam,  to be named.

The authors of the Bible believed, and the Bible reflected that belief, that for a person to name anything gave that person power over that object. Because of that power obtained by naming, the Hebrew authors of the various writings of their Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament, the very name of God (Yahweh) is so holy that to speak the name would be to profane the sacred. Therefore the Jews were prohibited from using the name of God.  Moreover, various authors warn, ”No man has seen the face of God and lived.”

Having made the animals, God saw that still Adam was lonely, so God caused him to fall into a deep sleep, took a rib from  him and formed from it a woman. God also took her to Adam to be named.  Adam recognizes that she is “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,”  so he names her woman because “she was taken out of man.”  They were naked and thought nothing of it.

 

Modern, Christian Fundamentalists’ Reading of the Creation Story

Particularly since the Scopes monkey trial, in which the theory of evolution was put to a judicial trial in the American South, Christian fundamentalists have rejected any form of evolution as a scientific reality, choosing a literal reading of the biblical creation stories, despite obvious conflicts within them. Indeed, the obvious conflicts were noted by the early Church Fathers.

 

The Church Fathers’ Difficulties with a Literal Story of Creation

Origen

The Church Father, Origen,  writes  in his book, Mysteries of Adoni, in about 230 A.D.,

What man of sense will agree with the statement that the first, second, and third days, in which the evening is named and the morning, were without sun, moon and stars?

What man is found such an idiot as to suppose that God planted trees in Paradise, in Eden, like a husbandman.

Origen: Mysteries Of Adini.

 

St. Augustine

 

There is no way of preserving the literal sense of the first chapter of Genesis, without impiety, and attributing things to God unworthy of him.

 

OTHER ACCOUNTS OF CREATION

Prior to the biblical account, there were other similar stories of creation in the Mesopotamian area: Babylon, Persia, Egypt, even another Jewish account. In the Babylonian account, God created man and woman to attend his garden, Anu.  In the Parsee account, Ahuramazda created the world in six periods, after which he rested. In the Persian account, Ormuzd, the god of gods, suggests to the other gods “let us make man in our likeness;” and he creates man and woman, together, joined at their backs, only to divide them to give them individuality. In Jewish tradition found in the Targum and Talmud, God also creates man and woman, joined together, with two faces in opposite directions. The Etruscan story also states that God created the world in six periods of time, 6000 years each.  The Egyptian God, Ra, created the world, established a garden, also, and placed man and woman in it to tend it and to live as gods. In the Greek account, Zeus breathed life into clay, creating man; he then gave to man a beautiful woman, Pandora, with an infamous box, not so different than the story of the garden of Eden contained within the Bible.

Remote from the stories of the Mesopotamian area, Tahitians of Polynesia also have a creation story remarkably parallel in aspects to the Genesis account: God creates man of the red earth, causes him to fall into a deep sleep and fashions woman from one of his ribs.

For an excellent article  concerning common elements among  the stories of the Bible and around the world see http://dept.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths_10.html . “This web site was completed for a high school Latin course. The assignment was to explore some asset of classical culture and compare it to another culture, either modern of historic.”   This site  is much more than one would expect of a high school assignment.   It is well-documented and well-presented, of the order of a higher level graduate research paper.   Highly recommended!!

Before we examine what, exactly, was created in the literal sense of the stories, we will first proceed with the story of the Garden of Eden as told in Genesis.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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It’s Just a Myth. . . . Just a Myth?!

In the general Christian American society that I grew up in, the word “myth” had the general, deprecatory meaning of “false.” Although it might refer to the stories of ancient peoples, they were yet false, not “the true God.” A subspecies of myth, fables, did not proclaim a false god, but they taught a moral lesson. That was good.  Other myths, such as Greek myth were recognized as the basis of certain psychological truths, such as the story of Narcissus and nothing more. Beyond that, myths were simply stories of ancient people, often associated with superstitions of those people or otherwise having sacred meaning to them, generally primitive and having little if any meaning for us today.

Myths may have at times referred to primitive religions, most specifically, identified with idolatry. This was not associated with our Bible because our Bible was literally true. To associate any ancient myth with stories in our Bible, other than its mere references to pagan idolatry, would have the necessary implication that our Bible was false. It would be an attack on the very foundation of our faith, and therefore intolerable.

My background is similar to that of rapture,follow your bliss,

Joseph Campbell tells us in his public television series with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth:

Myth reveals that which is common to all humanity.

It reveals the rapture of being alive.

They are the world’s dreams.

Mythology is poetry, and the poetic language is very flexible.

Myths inspire the realization of the possibility of your perfection, the fullness of your strength, and the bringing of solar light into the world.

Every mythology has to do with the wisdom of life . . .  It integrates the individual into his society and the society and to the field of nature.… It’s a harmonizing force.”

Slaying monsters is slaying the dark things. Myths grabbed you somewhere down inside.

“The myths tell me where I am,”  Campbell tells us, and reveals the beauty that surrounds me; that there is something beyond that which my eyes can reveal.  Mythology is the song “of the imagination inspired by the energies of the body.” Myths concern more serious matters of living within a society, of living in harmony with nature.

Mythological Truths as Inherited and “Subverted” by Biblical Writers

Brian Godawa borrows the phrase of CS Lewis’ essay for his book, Myth Became Fact.  In his preface, Godawa notes that the majority of the Bible is not theological or logical construct. Rather, it is poetry, storytelling, metaphor and allegory in celebratory. He quotes CS Lewis,

We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about “parallels” and “pagan Christ’s” – they ought to be there – it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t.

Godawa notes that in common usage “myth” means “false,” and since the word of God can never be false, the category of myth is anathema in relation to the Bible.

The problem, he notes, is when Christians interpret their scriptures as “historical” or “factually accurate.” The Bible was written by human beings with a particular cultural, geographical, and historical orientation. It is error to insist that biblical writers meet modern standards for worldview, scientific understanding and cultural orientation. To do so is, in his words, would be “cultural imperialism.” Biblical writers, both in the Old Testament and the New, viewed the world as viewed by unsophisticated people, with sky above, both above and below which was more water, as described in the creation story of Genesis 1. The roots of our modern scientific mind were laid 1500 years later in the Renaissance, with the birth of the scientific method, a dramatic departure from Middle East worldviews of biblical writers.  Indeed, Godawa states,

For us to demand that the biblical text be scientifically or historically “accurate” as we define those terms is not a high view of Scripture, it is a low view of Scripture.

In lay language, Godawa holds that the mythical resources in the societies that surrounded Israel were adopted by the biblical writers and subverted to God’s purposes.  He rejects both the Liberals position that the Bible is merely a product of human activity, or anthropocentric, and the conservative – literal position that Bible is literally the words of God, or theocentric.

It appears to me that Godawa, taking the position that God subverted myths of the time and area to “His purposes,” is as anthropomorphic as is the liberal position to which he objects. I do believe that the mythological sources were subverted, that being a practice of the time; but I do not accept that the writers of the Bible accurately stated “God’s intentions,” as though the “mind of God” could be known.  No man has seen God and lived, the Bible tells us; nor can anyone mine below the surface of forbidden deific appearances to know the mind of God.  Godawa notes that the subverted stories transcended the sources, and with that I agree.  I do not go so far as to limit that transcendence, nor unreasonably elevate it, then or now. Our challenge when we read the Bible, is to allow it to resonate and inspire us, and to respond.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

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Reason and Myth

Protestantism has been divisive from its founding by Luther.  It is divise because rather than teaching to love each other, right relations, it is founded on “right belief” as expressed in a selection they make from one of the letters of Paul, “Saved by faith and not by works lest any man should boast.” Nonetheless, one cannot arrive at “right belief,” “right reading,” or “right interpretation” the reason, without reason: does the passage as read make sense?  Use of reason, while denying it, invites insidious results, hence the multitudinous divisions within Protestantism immediately following its establishment, and continuing yet to this day.

It is NOT my intention to destroy the faith of anyone.  It is my intention to stretch and strengthen my own inclusive faith in this endeavor, and to encourage and to build up the faith of all.  It is that same God who is revealed throughout the world to all peoples, of many different names or of no name at all.  For me, one response to God is awe.  Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist and cosmetologist, urged, ““Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do…don’t just give up.”

Reason and faith do not conflict.  Joseph Campbell states in Power of Myth,

Science is breaking through now into the mystery dimensions. It’s pushed itself into the sphere the myths he is talking about. It’s coming to the edge.… The edge, the interface between what can be known and what is never to be discovered because it is a mystery that transcends all human research.

That’s the reason we speak of the divine. There is a transcendent energy source. When the physicist observes subatomic particles, he is seeing a trace on the screen. These traces come and go, come and go, and we come and go, and all of life comes and goes. That energy is the informing energy of all things. Mythic worship is addressed to that.

 

I particularly am inspired by the first verse of the Tao, as quoted by Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book, Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom Tao.  The Tao might be  “my Higher Power” or “Yahweh,” “the Ground of All Being,” and other imaginative terms common to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, many tribal or local religious groups, or “the beyond self” for self – proclaimed agnostics or atheists.

1^st Verse

The Tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao.

But The name that can be named

is not the eternal name.

The Tao is both named and unnamed.

As nameless it is the origin of all things;

as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery;

ever desiring, one sees only manifestations,

And the mystery itself is the doorway to all understanding.

We are truly one: I in Thee, Thee in me, each of us reflecting the image of the Divine, the Transcendent and the Supremely Personal.  Let us join hands and together travel, each in the name of his or her God as “God” is revealed to each.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

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Introduction

Ancient Stories:

What Do They Tell Us? Of What Relevance of Can They Be For Us Today?

Every generation has had its own stories, specific to each clan, culture, nation and time. Over the last several hundred years, evidence of such stories has become more widely known.

Perhaps one of the most dramatic and ancient stories is that of Neolithic man, told in cave paintings. In the Mesopotamian area, certain ancient constructions have long been noted, but until recent centuries, they were not closely examined and interpreted in the light of archaeological, linguistic, or literary sciences. That new learning has aided scholars in the translation of cuneiforms and other ancient writing in that area. Archaeological digs have revealed many artifacts relating to life in those ancient times, including materials found at burial sites indicating those things and images that had particular meaning to the individual in that culture, such as tools, gods, goddesses, and other figurines; and things that are surmised to indicate an early expectation of transition from decaying physical life to a future life.

In the last century the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered together with many other ancient texts preserved in whole or in part. Literary criticism was applied to determine the relationship of such documents to the documents that we now consider authentic, for example, indicating that the Bible didn’t just drop directly out of the sky from God to us.

Scientific inquiry has revealed that one of the smallest living things, a virus, adapts to new circumstances by evolving. Archaeological discoveries of ancient life, such as mammoths that do not exist today, have similarities to life forms that we find today. Large earthmoving machines used in the construction of highways, for example, reveal not only stratification of the Earth’s upper crust, but often they also reveal skeletons, artifacts and other evidences of life long ago.

An inquiring person must ask how these discoveries, this learning, impact our understanding of present life and of the authority of books and documents upon which our faith has been established. There are several possible responses the answers, among them, to deny the validity of those new discoveries; to admit they exist, but attribute them to some form of subterfuge, perhaps Satan’s ingenious devices to lead a believer astray; to accommodate that which we have learned with that upon which we have relied as authoritative, such as the Bible, so that we can retain our faith without the threat of new learning; to allow ourselves to be enriched by the learning, which necessarily means to develop our faith and beliefs with the confidence that our faith will be richer, deeper, and more interconnected with others; to use that knowledge to attack the faith of others or to support the superiority of our own; or even to discard all faith as though it were made irrelevant by science, leaving the individual with either agnosticism or atheism.

If one allows one’s faith to change, to grow, what difference does it actually make in our living? Are we the product of our physical environment, of our genetic inheritance? If these things are mere influences, to what degree can we choose to nourish one or an array of what we perceive to be positive elements or to minimize those that we perceive to be negative or threatening? If we believe that God has a plan for us, imposed upon us, what impact will that new knowledge have on the way we live? If we believe we are mere automatons, will we act in any way other than reactionary? If we believe that we can choose to be whatever we choose to be, and we can get whatever we choose to get, without regard to others, how will that impact our living?

As I consider these questions, two things come to mind:

1. Eric Fromm’s definition of religion and its function holds that a vital faith is necessary to a  mental health: religion is that which gives one a sense of orientation and an object of devotion.
2. The American Indian story of the two wolves fighting within each one of us. “Which one wins, Grampa?” “The one that you feed.”

Eric Fromm addresses the function of religion in an emotionally healthy individual. I am also aware that such a commitment to a functionally solid sense of orientation and an object of devotion, requires faith. Faith is uniquely, intensely personal. If I am going to discuss faith, it must be in a sense of sharing, not of conversion. I intend to respect the faith of each person who may read this blog, and to share my own, not in battle, nor for purposes of conquest, but to enrich and deepen the faith of all.

That is my intention. That is my conviction.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

 

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Preface to Universal Truths Expressed in Myth

Protestants would tend to deny reason a place in their faith, citing St. Paul and Luther: “Saved by faith and not by works lest any man should boast.” Nonetheless, one cannot arrive at “right belief,” “right reading,” or “right interpretation” without reason. Use of reason, while denying it, can yield insidious results.  Witness the multitudinous divisions within Protestantism immediately following its establishment, and continuing yet to this day.

I have explored in this blog some universal themes emanating from biblical scriptures. Those same themes will find expression in other individuals and in other cultures and traditions.  Despite the differences, Joseph Campbell states that,

[W]hat human beings have in common is revealed in myths. . . . Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life.

What happens when we fail to see a deeper meaning in the Holy Scripture claimed by all three of the monotheistic Abrahamic religions: Jusaism, Christianity and Islam? What happens when the reader settles for a prosaic, literal meaning of the words found there, as though it were only an account of a supernatural creative act of our omnipotent God “out there,” above and apart from us and creation; a temporal and false, therefore evil, world beneath the purely spiritual ascendancy of its creator, truly and accurately revealed in the Trinity, perceived by faith to the contradiction of man’s reason: God, Jesus and Holy Spirit? Three but One? Joseph Campbell, in The Power of Myth, addresses the resulting quagmire by citing the Zen philosopher, Dr. Suzuki:

God against man. Man against God. Man against nature. Nature against man. Nature against God. God against nature – very funny religion!

It is NOT my intention to destroy the faith of anyone.  It IS my intention to stretch and strengthen my own inclusive faith in this endeavor, to encourage all others in their spiritual life, and to build up the faith of all as “God” (one of the names that I use that is generally understood by people in my religious culture) is revealed to each.  It is that same God who is revealed throughout the world to all peoples, of many different names or of no name at all.

The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.

Would you please share your own faith story?

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Original Sin

The notion of original sin is unique to Western Christianity.  Jesus taught to the contrary: children are not so tainted. “Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 19: 14.

Wikipedia describes original sin, its origins, its various interpretations and applications at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin:

According to a Christian theological doctrine, original sin, also called ancestral sin,^[1] is humanity’s state of sin resulting from the fall of man,^[2] stemming from Adam’s rebellion in Eden. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred to as a “sin nature”, to something as drastic as total depravity or automatic guilt of all humans through collective guilt.^[3]

The concept of original sin was first alluded to in the 2nd century by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in his controversy with certain dualistGnostics. Other church fathers such as Augustine also developed the doctrine,^[2] seeing it as based on the New Testament teaching of Paul the Apostle (Romans 5:12–21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22) and the Old Testament verse of Psalm 51:5.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose and Ambrosiaster considered that humanity shares in Adam’s sin, transmitted by human generation. Augustine’s formulation of original sin was popular among Protestant reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who equated original sin with concupiscence, affirming that it persisted even after baptism and completely destroyed freedom.^[2] Within Roman Catholicism, the Jansenist movement, which the Church then declared heretical, also maintained that original sin destroyed freedom of will.^[9] On the other hand, some modern Protestants deny that the doctrine has a basis in Scripture.^[10]

There are many western Christians who reject the notion of original sin.  Emerson rejected it in Self-Reliance:

Our young people are diseased with the theological problems of original sin, origin of evil, predestination, and the like. These never presented a practical difficulty to any man,– never darkened any man’s road, who did not go out of his way to seek them.

Albert Schweitzer writes in his book, published posthumously, The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity:

Out of the story of Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruit there arose in late Judaism, and passed over into Christianity, the doctrine that this sin continues to be at work in all mankind. So long as the words of scripture still have some validity–and the words which the earliest records of Jesus give us surely stand supreme–no one ought to expect a Christian to regard this doctrine, which was unknown to Jesus, as part of the essence of the Christian faith. Christians must be allowed to think in this matter as Jesus did. Jesus gives us in his speeches an insight into the essential nature of sin which needs no elaboration in the direction of a doctrine of original sin. Belief in this dogmatic view of sin is not the same thing as grasping and experiencing the problem of guilt in all its depth.

Schweitzer recognized that Truth is not always to be expressed or accessed by the literal rendering of Biblical writings.  Sometimes the Bible points to Truths without bounding them with the limitations of language:

The expectation of the Kingdom which would come of itself was not to find actual fulfillment. For centuries Christianity looked for it in vain. It could not easily come to terms with the fact. It had to try to understand what could be learned from it. When it applied itself to the interpretation of the signs of the times, it could understand them only as meaning that it was called upon to renounce its old ideas and learn anew. The task was laid upon it of giving up its belief in the Kingdom which would come of itself and giving its devotion to the Kingdom which must be made real.

Paul the thinker recognized as the essence of the Kingdom of God which was coming into existence that it consists in the rule of the Spirit. We learn from this knowledge which comes to us through him that the way in which the coming of the Kingdom will be brought about is by the coming of Jesus Christ to rule in our hearts and through us in the whole world. In the thought of Paul the supernatural Kingdom is beginning to become the ethical and with this to change from the Kingdom to be expected into something which has to be realized. It is for us to take the road which this prospect opens up.

Joseph Campbell interprets the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as expressive of the human condition within the fields of opposites.  Christian fundamentalists, indeed mainstream Western Christianity, view that disobedience as a fatal defect which was passed from Adam and to all humanity as though it were a thing, a fatal gene.

I do not see the act of “disobedience” as representing anything more than expressing the human condition in the field of action: how does one balance self interest with the interests of others; how does one live in right relationship?  It is a metaphor for the transformation of the human heart by the Christ, God with us.  Salvation is being set free to live, not a state of being acquired by adopting “right belief.”  Salvation is one of the gifts of righteousness, i.e. living in right relationship with others and with our world, not a static state of being.

At the outset, I stated that original sin is a Western feature of Christianity.  Eastern Christianity (Greek Orthodox) did not adopt it.  Salvation is through Jesus, it would hold its, but god is merciful.  A fine distinction is drawn by Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Christian_theology :

Salvation, or “being saved,” therefore, refers to this process of being saved from death and corruption and the fate of hell. The Orthodox Church believes that its teachings and practices represent the true path to participation in the gifts of God. Yet, it should be understood that the Orthodox do not believe that you must be Orthodox to participate in salvation. God is merciful to all. The Orthodox believe that there is nothing that a person (Orthodox or non-Orthodox) can do to earn salvation. It is rather a gift from God. However, this gift of relationship has to be accepted by the believer, since God will not force salvation on humanity. Man is free to reject the gift of salvation continually offered by God. To be saved, man must work together with God in a synergeia whereby his entire being, including his will, effort and actions, are perfectly conformed with, and united to, the divine.

In Judaism there are some Old Testament notions that the sins of the father may be punished in succeeding generations, and that is not based upon inherited sin from Adam.  To the contrary, Ezekiel 18:20 provides, “The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son.  The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”

Islam holds that we are born innocent, pure; that sin is determined strictly by what we do during our lifetime, neither condemned by nature nor saved by faith without works.  The mere thought of sinful acts is not a sin: only the act.  Sin is violation of the laws of God, not a state of being.  We are judged by our deeds, and then, not by the mere fact that we have sinned, but that sin is balanced according to whether it is major or minor and the balance among them.  Nonetheless, God is merciful and sin may be forgiven upon repentance.   In fact, the Koran provides precisely to the contrary to the nature of original sin: “. . . “…man can have nothing but what he strives for” (Quran 53:38–39).  And, “Who receives guidance, receives it for his own benefit: who goes astray does so to his own loss: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another …” (Quran 17:15)

Buddhism has no God who sits in judgment of humankind.  The Buddha is neither an incarnation of God, nor a Savior.  It shares with the other religions a deep respect for all life.  There is no place in it for either sin or original sin.  All life is marked by suffering, but it has nothing to do with punishment.

Next page: https://bibleartists.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/preface-to-universal-truths-expressed-in-math/

Experiences of “God,” the Divine, and the Sacred: Marcus Borg

“The more”My notion of “God” tends to be vague and intellectually influenced.  More abstract than personal.  I wonder to what degree my convictions and experiences are conditioned by my infant polio experience and six month hospitalization. And yet, when I reflect on my life, I see “the hand of God at work,” and I am thankful.

I have, however, powerfully experienced the Sacred and the Divine while listening (penultimate abstraction?) to, conducting, and being absorbed by music: especially listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and conducting portions of Handel’s Messiah at St.Anselm Catholic Church, Anselmo, Nebraska with the Custer Chorale; Mark Embree and Jane Bunnel, soloists; and instrumentalist of the Hastings Symphony with Beth Cole, harpsichord.  Transcendent!

My conviction and experience of God perhaps best accords with Marcus Borg’s experience and belief as told at http://www.marcusjborg.com/2010/07/01/mystical-experiences-of-god/

Marcus Borg: Mystical Experiences of God

My most formative religious experiences were a series of mystical experiences. They began to occur in my early thirties. They changed my understanding of the meaning of the word “God”-of what that word points to-and gave me an unshakable conviction that God (or “the sacred”) is real and can be experienced.

These experiences also convinced me that mystical forms of Christianity are true, and that the mystical forms of all the enduring religions of the world are true.

My experiences were what scholars of mysticism call “extravertive” or “eyes open” mystical experiences (the other type is “introvertive” or “eyes closed”). I saw the same visual “landscape” – a forest, a room, the inside of an airliner – that I normally see. There were no extra beings, no angels.

For a minute or two (and once for the better part of an hour), what I was seeing looked very different. Light became different – as if there were a radiance shining through everything. The biblical phrase for this is “the glory of God” – as the book of Isaiah puts it, “the earth is filled with the glory – the radiance – of God. The world was transfigured, even as it remained “the same.” And I experienced a falling away of the subject-object distinction that marks our ordinary everyday experience – that sense of being a separate self, “in here,” while the world is “out there.”

They were experiences of wonder – not of curiosity, but of what the 20th century Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel called “radical amazement.”

They were also experiences in which I felt that I was seeing more clearly than I ever had before – that what I was experiencing was “the way things are.” And they were also experiences of complete peacefulness, marked by a sense that I would love to stay in this mental state forever. Anxiety and distraction utterly disappeared. Everything looked beautiful.

When I had these experiences, I had no intellectual understanding of mysticism. Indeed, whenever I tried to read mystical writings, they seemed like gobbledy-gook. I had no idea what they were about – they were completely opaque. But after these experiences, mystical texts became luminous. I recognized in them what I had experienced.

The effect was to transform my understanding of the word “God.” I began to understand that the word does not refer to a person-like being “out there,” beyond the universe – an understanding of “God” that ceased to be persuasive in my teens and twenties.

I began to understand that the word “God” refers to “what is” experienced as wondrous and compelling, as, to use William James’ phrase, “the more” which is all around us. Or to use a phrase from the New Testament, the word “God” refers to “the one in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17.28). “God” is not a hypothesis, but a reality who can be known.

Thus, to argue about whether God exists seems to me to be based on a misunderstanding of what the word points to. If “God” means a person-like being “out there,” completely separate from the universe, then I am an atheist. I do not believe there is such a being. But if the word “God” points to a radiance that pervades “what is,” as I now think – then, of course, God is real. Not just the God of Christianity, but the God of all the enduring religions.

Sin and Its Consequences

Christian concepts of sin generally include sins of commission (in violations of legal or ethical prohibitions) as well as those of omission (in violation of legal or ethical commands or duties).  In my first year of college, I had a religion course with Dr. Nida.  His definition of sin has had great significance for me over the many years: “sin is anything that separates us from the love of God.”  In law school, Professor John Snowden distinguished the negative form of the law of the road, as a prohibition (“do not drive faster than 65 miles per hour”) and a positive, but open ended, command (“drive safely”).

For the Christian, as, I’m sure, with many other religions, focus is often upon omissions or violations of fine details of the law.   Jesus confronted such legalism throughout his life.  “Love and do not judge.”  “Is it not right to do good on the Sabbath?” versus “Do not be like the Pharisees, notorious ‘protectors and keepers of the law, often to the point of mere display.”  “Do not harvest food (wheat) on the Sabbath.”  He railed against any religious authority that would burden common people with technicalities, as though it were millstones about their neck.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells us that the self righteous religious authorities ignored one of their own who had been beaten and left to die beside the road; it was one who was hated by their own, the Samaritan, who showed compassion for the man and took responsibility to restore him to health.  The Samaritan was the “good neighbor.” The message: be the good neighbor, even though the one that you help may hate you.

For Jesus, the core of the laws were simple: love God, and like that, love all.  In such a view, sin is the disruption of right relationships with others and with the world, as well.  To the degree that one sees the Divine in all of creation, disruption of right relationships with all life and the world that we live in is sin.

Religious Tolerance writes of the variety of Christian notions of the taint of sin at http://www.religioustolerance.org/sin_over.htm:

	Most conservative Christians believe that   almost all of the Mosaic Code no longer applies to them. It was replaced by   God’s grace in the New Testament. However, many hold on to the applicability   of some of the laws, like the two condemning homosexuality in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 which   they quote often.
	Sin is implied in the Judeo-Christian Golden Rule.
	Sin is implied in the   analogous Ethics of   Reciprocity found in almost all other religions.

Conservative Christianity deviates little from historical Christianity on matters of sin. However, secularists and followers of present-day liberal Christianity often find their beliefs in conflict with biblical passages and traditional Christian teachings. They find many biblical passages about sin difficult to understand or comprehend; they violate modern religious and secular concepts of morality and ethics.

Christianity, and other Western religions, have historically taught that most [“unbelieving”] people will spend eternity in Hell after they die:

	Because of Adam and Eve’s “original sin”   that all subsequent generations of humans have inherited from their ancestors   before birth, and/or
	Because of their sinful   acts perpetrated during their life on earth.

Different Christian religions view Salvation differently. For example:

Roman Catholicism places great emphasis on   church sacraments as the main process by which a person’s sins are forgiven   and one is assured to eventually attain Heaven after death.

Most conservative   Protestant denominations have traditionally placed salvation from sin firmly   into the hands of the individual. She/he must repent of their sins and trust   Jesus as Lord and Savior in order to be saved from eternal punishment in   Hell after death. This remains a major concern, within at least the   conservative wings of most Western religions; it strongly motivates many   conservative Christians to proselytize others in order to convert them to   their belief systems.

Although there are reported accounts of “near death experiences,” there are no reports of life following after unabated physical death, in terms of organ shut down for a prolonged period, and confirmed, or significant bodily deterioration.  There was a remarkable book concerning the reality of heaven as told by a child, but its content is a matter of faith, not experientially verifiable nor subject to duplication.  We can only draw upon our human experiences to describe notions the survival of any part or essence of the individual after medically irreversible death.  Therefore, notions of what happens after death are much more varied among the major religions.  Such consequences range from physical and/or spiritual resurrection in the Latter Days, to continued life “in the people, or, as to the individual, Heaven or Hell, Purgatory, life simply ends, reincarnation with more opportunity’s to “get it right,” and, as opposed to the spirit ascending or descending to its “reward,” notions of the continued presence of the spirit of the deceased in the memories and lives of survivors. There is no way to physically confirm or disprove such notions.  One can choose how one “sees” or treats the death and loss.

For example, a member of my Sunday school class reported one Sunday that both of her parents were killed in an auto accident. She was told by mental health experts that she needed to grieve their death or it would haunt her.  She said that they were coming from a casino where they had both been successful at the games, and they were driving home when they were killed. She said she imagined them in heaven, enjoying their winnings. She was happy for them. I was somewhat confused and inquired: ” I thought you did not believe in a place called Heaven.” She responded. ” I don’t, literally. But that is the way and that I imagine them.”

Later, I was talking with a woman who tragically lost a young child in a tragic event.    Her experience of grief over the last decade has not entirely relieved the pain.  It never can.  But over the years she has transformed the tragedy with hope of reunification in the future, after her own death.  “It doesn’t really matter whether and how we are reunited.  If I am wrong, upon death I will know no different.”

This range of belief concerning the consequences of sin after death is wider among the regions, even among their sects, than any other aspect of religious concepts.  The reason is that the other concepts have some relationship to shared human experience.  For example, love, hope, estrangement, separation, reunification, atonement (at-one-ment), and forgiveness are common human experiences fundamental to human existence and human relationships.

All that we can do is ask how that belief, although unverifiable, affects the quality of our living today: does it promote our respect for life? is it conducive to courage to face life’s challenges? does it inspire love and inclusiveness?  (These latter considerations are based upon value judgments, such as, is it better to love than to hate?  Or is it better to live in the present with hope than to be shackled to the past with vengeance?

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=233027 represents a Jewish view of sin and its consequences:

Humans are inherently neither good nor bad; humans are just humans. All humans have an impulse toward good as well as an impulse toward evil, and that is not going to change throughout our lives. We will not magically lose the impulse toward evil through an infusion of the Holy Spirit, a Second Birth, or any other such supernatural experience. We are all doomed to remain human. Sorry about that.

Further, our job is not simply to resist the evil impulse and go with the good; for one thing, that is not humanly possible to do 100%. For another, the evil impulse is necessary to human existence. For instance, if there were no such thing as selfishness, to ANY degree, we would all be poor and homeless because we would all have given away everything we own.  If no one sought sexual gratification, humans would have been extinct before we ever got out of the caves – and maybe the trees.

It is our job to take the evil impulse and sanctify it; to turn it to the service of good. Do you ache to be famous? Be famous for doing good; be a philanthropist or a volunteer. Do you want to be rich? Get rich by inventing or discovering something that benefits everyone. Do you want power? Run for office, and do your best to serve and do good for the people who elect you. Do you crave sex? Get married to someone who feels the same way and ball your brains out; make each other happy. Do you want to be admired and looked up to and depended upon? Do the same, and have many children.

The emphasis in Judaism is on doing good, not on not doing bad. It seems to me an altogether more positive, healthier, and happier approach. One spends one’s energy looking for good things to do, not bad things to condemn.

Whereas the typical Christian feels self-assured of heaven if he or she “confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior” and is “born again, (right belief), Muslim assurance is generally limited to special acts, such as martyrdom.  On the other hand there are a number of sins that will guarantee eternity in Hell.  Beyond that, there is nothing to guarantee the Muslim eternity in Heaven.  That will be decided after death on an individual basis, if the Muslim was “good enough.”

For an examination of the major world religion, in their various prominent aspects concerning sin and its consequences relating to life after death, see http://www.comparativereligion.com/salvation.html

The Tree of Life

disobedience,Genesis 2

⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

⁵ Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth^[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, ⁶ but streams^[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. ⁷ Then the Lord God formed a man^[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

⁸ Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

^{. . .}

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

¹⁸ The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

¹⁹ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam^[f] no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs^[g] and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib^[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

²³ The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

Genesis 3 (NIV) “The Fall”

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring^[a] and hers;
he will crush^[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

²⁰ Adam^[c] named his wife Eve,^[d] because she would become the mother of all the living.

²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side^[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

²⁵ Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

The notion of a tree representing life is not unique to the Jewish scriptures, nor to Christian and Islamic interpretations of those scriptures.  We have discussed the concept of a tree as representing humankind’s condition of being capable of both good and evil, and with knowledge to distinguish the two.

In the second story of creation as told in Genesis 2, very is as a second tree, the fruit of which Adam it is forbidden to eat: that is the tree of life.  Mythologically, it represents the connection between the heavens, accessed by its height, and the underworld, accessed by its roots, expressed in its canopy through branches and twigs which sprout from the main trunk.

In the Power of Myth, conversations of Bill Moyers with Joseph Campbell, Campbell explores the mythical implications of the second story of creation told in Genesis 2:  once Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, threatening the exclusive province of God’s wisdom and knowledge, God had to expelled them from Paradise before they ate of the Tree of Life, which would grant them full equality with God.

Whereas eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil empowers humankind as well as burdens it with the duty to make the choice between good and evil and to take the consequences for those choices, the lack of the benefits of the fruit of the Tree of Life further burdens humanity in that each man and woman’s venture into the world of space and time is limited by death.

Similar concepts of the Tree of Life are expressed in ancient myth throughout the Mesopotamian region independent of the story as told in Genesis: ancient Persia, ancient Babylon, ancient Egypt, and ancient Assyria.

Even in China there was an ancient Taoist story of a peach tree, the fruit of which would bestow immortality.  During the 1990s, archaeological diggings of a sacrificial pit revealed three bronze trees representing a scene consistent with that myth.

In 1998, when my grandmother, Ruth Bond Fitz Randolph, was expected to turn 100 years of age, the Bonds and Fitz Randolphs planned a family reunion at Camp Harley Sutton, near Alfred, New York. Her husband’s brother, Rev. Elmo Fitz Randolph, spoke at the reunion’s Sabbath worship, in which he expanded  the concept of the family tree with the notion of grafting, intended to represent marriage into the family and its enrichment of the tree and its fruits.

 

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Christianity came to see the eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, contrary to God’s command, as the source of “original sin,” inherited by mere issuance from Adam.  That notion has no basis in the life and teachings of Jesus.  Rather, it is rooted in the letters of Paul in his justification of Jesus as the Christ to the Gentiles and presentation to them of Jesus as Savior.  The name, Savior, was derived from one of the names attributed to Caesar, as was Son of God and others.  Paul had one foot in the Gentile world, and the other in the Jewish World.  From his Jewish heritage, Paul connected Jesus to the sacrificial lamb, without blemish, given as atonement for the people’s sins.

The Biblical story of Genesis is predated by a similar Babylonian story of approximately 2300 BCE.  That is represented by a cylinder seal from that time and area.

Generally, the Judaic interpretation of the story is that with the act, humankind became inclined to evil.  The medieval French rabbi, Rashi, considered the offense to be Eve’s addition to God’s command:

‘Neither shall you touch it.’ [By saying this, Eve] added to the command, and thereby came to detract [from it].  This is as written [Proverbs 30:6], ‘Do not add to his words.’

Rabbi Meir asserted that the forbidden fruit was the grape, which Noah later tried to redeem by making sacramental wine of it.  Rabbi Nechemia asserted that the fruit was a fig, and that Adam and Eve used the fig leaves to hide themselves.  Yet another asserted that the fruit was wheat.  The general Jewish interpretation is that the act of eating the fruit of that tree caused evil to mix with good.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, enlightened by learning of his time, said of original sin:

Our young people are diseased with the theological problems of original sin, origin of evil, predestination and the like.

Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers speaks of the significance of the story:

. . . Without that knowledge, we’d all be a bunch of babies still in Eden, without any participation in life.  A woman brings life into the world.  Eve is the mother of this temporal world.  Formerly you had a dreamtime paradise there in the Garden of Eden – no time, no birth, no death – no life. . . .

Campbell speaks of the historical background to the story:

There is actually a historical explanation based on the coming of the Hebrews into Canaan and their subjugation of the people of Canaan.  The principle divinity of the people of Canaan was the Goddess; and associated with a Goddess is the serpent.  This is the symbol of the mystery of life.  The male – god – oriented group rejected it.  In other words, there is a historical rejection of the Mother Goddess implied in the story of the Garden of Eden.

He explains that, according to Genesis, prior to the “Fall,” man and woman did not know that they were different from each other.

The two are just creatures.  God and man are practically the same.  God walks in the cool of the evening in the garden where they are.  And then they eat the apple, the knowledge of the opposites.  And when they discover they are different, the man and woman cover their shame.  You see, they had not thought of themselves as opposites.  Male and female is one opposition.  Another opposition is the human and God.  Good and evil is a third opposition.  The primary oppositions are the sexual and that between human beings and God.  Then comes the idea of good and evil in the world. . . .  To move out into the world, you have to act in terms of pairs of opposites.

Although Islamic sacred literature includes the story of Genesis, the Koran, itself, refers only to a tree, the fruit of which God forbade them to eat.  Because of their disobedience, they were evicted from Heaven to dwell on earth.  They repented and God forgave them.  Thereafter, those who follow in the path that God directs will be rewarded with everlasting life in heaven, but those who disobey shall be punished in Hell.

Concerning the symbol of the tree in other religions, Wikipedia provides at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life

The concept of a tree of life has been used in science, religion, philosophy, and mythology. A tree of life is a common motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies. It alludes to the interconnection of all life on our planet and serves as a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense. The term tree of life may also be used as a synonym for sacred tree.^[1]

The tree of knowledge, connecting to heaven and the underworld, and the tree of life, connecting all forms of creation, are both forms of the world tree or cosmic tree, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica,^[2] and are portrayed in various religions and philosophies as the same tree.^[3]

The following is one interesting Christian perspective of the Jewish heritage relating to this story.  It somewhat reflects Joseph Campbell’s interpretation of the story as an introduction into life a world of opposites, called “merisms.”

https://www.biblicaltraining.org/blog/curious-christian/4-3-2012/what-tree-knowledge-good-and-evil:

What is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

Written by Douglas Stuart On the Tue, 2012-04-03 05:56 0 Comments

In Genesis 2:17 where you have the Garden of Eden story and God’s prohibition he says, “You can eat of any tree you want but you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Now, I have a question. Why wouldn’t he want them to eat of that tree most of all? Wouldn’t God want them to know all about good and evil? Isn’t that just the right tree to eat from? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil—know what is good, know what is bad, be able to choose between them, right?

Actually it is misleading. Here is the situation. The knowledge of good and evil is what is called a “merism.” Let me give you some examples very quickly. In the Bible we really have a lot of merisms. A merism is an expression of totality by the mention of polarity. You mention some opposites and it implies everything in between. For example, the west and the east are used as merisms. Heaven and hell, if I ascend to heaven there you are, if I go to Sheol there you are. Does that mean that God is only at the two extremes? No, he is everywhere, that is the point. Near and far are used as merisms. “Peace to the far and peace to the near,” says the Lord. In other words peace to everybody. More examples of merisms— “going out and coming in” is a fairly common merism. “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in,” meaning the Lord will take care of everything in your life.

Then “good and evil” is actually a very common merism. It means “any kind of thing” or it means “everything.” Their idols cannot speak, cannot walk, cannot do evil, cannot do good, meaning they just cannot do anything. The knowledge of good and evil is a way of saying in Hebrew “all knowledge, knowledge of everything” and that is what God does not want people to know. If you read the story, you see that is what Satan says. He says, “Hey, he knows you will become like gods knowing everything. That is what he is trying to keep from you. Don’t you want to know everything?” Knowing everything sounds interesting. And they do and after the fall God says, he is speaking again in heaven as he often does in many places in Scripture not just Genesis, “Look they have become like one of us, they know good and evil, they know everything.” Does that mean that they actually know everything? You say, “Alright, immediately draw me a graph for the following equation.” No, it takes time to know that. The idea is that we now have more knowledge than we can morally handle. That is the point of what is emphasized here in this story.

Part of the human dilemma as a consequence of the fall is that humans have enormous knowledge of how to do bad things as well as how to do good things. The same human being that knows how to create a computer and all the bandwidth that they use for all the good communication purposes so you can get e-mail from your cousin in Mongolia also has provided a way for a vast increase in the dissemination of pornography in our age. The same skill that uses atomic energy for good makes weapons out of it. The same skill that does anything can be used for bad. Human beings, unlike hamsters and June bugs, have enormous capacity for choices; taking skills that they could use and should use for good and employing them for evil. That is part of the human dilemma. We are in trouble because we are so good at doing bad. That is, I think, the message that you are supposed to get out of this whole story about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.