OR - Intelligence and Christianity: Oil and Water (read on)? First off, hello all Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I'm a Freshman at Cal, a hesitant CS major, and I'm impressed by and large by the maturity and reason of the people on this board. I always used to read the religious debates on the forums that I browsed here and there (arcade fighting game forums, car forums, etc.) but I was always, well, unsatisfied. I read through the "limitations of atheism thread" and was completely floored. Even though it was after 30 hours without sleep. So I looked at some of the more common objections to Christianity and I thought I would like to discuss them, being a temporary non-Christian (who went to church as a kid) who knows some INTELLIGENT, perhaps RATIONAL Christians (just got off the phone with one, my sister). It seems to me, most importantly, that Christianity is the pursuit of a RELATIONSHIP with God/Jesus (I haven't tried to think about the trinity yet, I'm a bit buzzed right now). With that in mind, let's get down to biznass. - The old testament is one atrocity after another. Not only that, but it's one huge contradiction. Perhaps. But let me try to put some perspective into it. The Israeli people, as mentioned in Exodus, were slaves to the Egyptians for about 400 years before Moses set them free. Not only are we talking about people who have no memory of freedom, but we're talking B.C. here. These people don't understand ideas like women's rights, and don't have a developed sense of justice. They don't know how to have a relationship with God, so God has to set down some firm, and in perspective, *messed up* rules (see Deuteronomy, Leviticus, etc.). i.e. if a woman is raped and she doesn't fight back, both the man and the woman are stoned. God tries to teach the newly freed Israelis how to survive - telling them what is sanitary and what is unhealthy, etc. But most importantly, he sets down rules to follow so that the people would be able to have a relationship with him (all relationships have "ground rules" if you will). Even rules like "eye for an eye" were, for a primitive, impulsive, really *childlike* people, groundbreaking: if someone took my eye, I wouldn't only take their eye - I'd want to kill them and their children's children. One way to look at the Old Testament is that it *sets up* the New Testament, prepares the way for Jesus. Now I haven't learned/thought about the wars etc. yet but I'll definitely try to find out. As an aside, the sacrifices that God asked for were specific in nature: for example, he asked that for sacrificing doves, one dove be killed and the wings of the second be dipped in the blood of the first, and then set free. While the Israelis at the time may have thought it very arbitrary, in the light of Jesus's death saving man from sin, it becomes rather symbolic to me. I gather that the Old testament rules, the way that the ancients experienced a relationship with God was somehow "imperfect." To use a metaphor, their relationship was much like a child's relationship to his/her father: although the child doesn't understand fully why the parent wants them to behave a certain way, the child does it to please the parent. As people and cultures developed ("evolve," in a sense), God was able to reveal more and more of himself, saving the most perfect manifestation for when the people were ready to accept it. When Jesus came with his revolutionary message (turn the other cheek and EVERYTHING ELSE), we were ready (I take it from faith) for a mature, more meaningful relationship with God. And although MANY Christians of the past haven't "represented" the faith very well, I don't find it hard to understand that imperfect people can make imperfect interpretations of an EXTREMELY complex text, the complete understanding of which is outside the limitations of a lifetime. I also don't find it hard to understand that Christians who present a twisted parody of Christianity make many non-believers mistrustful of the entire religion. But we are talking about limited, imperfect people in a life-long relationship - of course they will screw up, many many times. Ideally, that shouldn't end the relationship or put others off from the idea of relationships. Genesis, creation -vs- evolution, and that convoluted mess... Wow. Well, I'm in NO way an expert, and I'm really only transferring what I hear, but researchers of Genesis (the creation chapter, of course) and the whole seven-day thingy understand that it is sort of a Hebrew poetry. "And it was good. And it was good. And it was good..." (get the idea?). And of course, many (perhaps MOST) Christians look upon the creation story as a metaphor - i.e. it doesn't exclude the possibility of evolution as we know it, one "day" for God isn't a day as we humans understand it, unless you're an "absolutist" Christian (hope I got the term right) who really believes that the world is 6000 years old Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And as for the significance of the tree of knowledge, well... God created the Garden of Eden for Adam, gave him a meaningful task (caretaker of the Garden) and, when the time was right, gave him Eve. But God introduced the Tree of forbidden fruit so that Adam and Eve would have the OPTION of choosing or rejecting God - because how could Adam and Eve have a meaningful relationship with God without choice, how could love be love without choice... Anyways, Satan (the serpent) tells Eve that if she eats the fruit, she will be "like God" in that she will be able to decide for herself what is Right and what is Wrong (man's refusal of God, I think) and so she does. And so God respects their decision and is forced to expel them from the garden, and from there, people become more and more sinful. Really, a recurring story in the Old Testament (and perhaps in our own lives?) is of man rejecting God for his own "knowledge". But anyways... Okay, I forgot exactly what other big objections you guys had with Christianity (which is different from almost all other religions in that it is about God reaching out to man, not man "finding" God from his own effort). I won't be able to answer them all, sure, but I'd be more than happy to ask more knowledgeable Christians. Well, the beers are catching up to me, so I'll make this short. I know I probably said SOMETHING wrong in there or otherwise misinterpreted the Bible, but I hope it helped. I just wanted to pass on what was a very enlightening experience for me, and I hope that if, as atheists, you "don't know whether there is a God or not", you'd at least try to find out. Here's a thought for you to disregard completely: In order for God to have a relationship with us, he needs for us to have FAITH (yeah, I know, the F-word Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) in him. How could it be faith if we knew that God exist - put another way, why would God, who wants our love (who wants us to marry Him, if you will - there's an analogy to consider), reveal to us that he exists? Love requires a measure of faith, even in human relationships, and how can there be faith in the face of incontrovertible facts? The prospective Christian must explore for his/herself whether the claims of Christianity and its detractors make sense (not ABSOLUTE FACT) and see the profound, lasting changes that Christianity makes in the lives of people who have MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS WITH GOD (excuse me for shouting) before making the often-maligned "leap of faith." So I hope that you guys ask tough questions that I personally can't answer, or prove to me that I'm absolutely wrong (because I'd like that; to paraphrase Mark Twain, "It's not the things I don't understand in the Bible that bother me, it's the things I understand that do!") I will try my best to keep an open mind to all (easier said than done), and I hope that you will respect me enough to do the same. Maybe it's just the beer talking, but I feel great to be here Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! - Ed
