tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34603392009-07-08T01:55:37.935-04:00Seductive In Small DosesJoshnoreply@blogger.comBlogger123125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-1315206128162894962009-07-08T01:27:00.005-04:002009-07-08T01:55:37.945-04:00

Recently finished Bart Ehrman's excellent Jesus, Interrupted which gives an interesting and accessible overview of the current state of scholarly opinion on the origins and development of the New Testament. The entire thing is highly quotable, but I particularly like his summation: It would be impossible, I should think, to argue that the Bible is a unified whole, inerrant in all its parts,

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-23466292304021483312009-07-07T01:06:00.006-04:002009-07-07T01:16:57.084-04:00

A nice idea from the book: I'm still agnostic. But in the words of Elton Richards, I'm now a reverent agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-67918124663619093662009-07-07T00:40:00.012-04:002009-07-07T01:04:42.908-04:00

Reading The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, I was really taken with the following quotation: Love...keeps no record of wrongs. It's taken from the following longer passage: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-29572948777385663592009-06-23T23:00:00.018-04:002009-07-07T01:21:14.788-04:00

...and I moreover believe that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system. Christianity's success and staying power owe a lot to the consistent willingness of its practitioners to shock the minds of children; to frighten them into belief. It was fear that led me and my childhood friends through the rites of salvation. Fear of eternal

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-65415757547214440572009-06-23T22:33:00.006-04:002009-06-23T23:00:56.579-04:00

If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, it would make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and remove them. There was no moral ill in believing the earth was flat like a trencher, any more than there was moral virtue in believing it was round like a globe; neither was there any moral ill in believing that the Creator made no other world than this, any more than there was

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-28391691568235161652009-06-19T02:11:00.001-04:002009-06-19T02:11:46.519-04:00

There's one thing I want to say so I'll be brave You were what I wanted, I gave what I gave I'm not sorry I met you I'm not sorry it's over I'm not sorry there's nothing to say Your Ex-Lover Is Dead – Stars

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-36081484853585921602009-06-19T02:07:00.004-04:002009-06-19T02:10:53.242-04:00

Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that Now you're all gone got your make-up on and you're not coming back (Can't you come back?) Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-26125859265526711942009-06-19T02:05:00.001-04:002009-06-19T02:14:00.809-04:00

How the heart bends, and summer she sends a sky that refuses to die. With weeds of the sea that wrap round our knees and a sun too hot to go down. You come around, you come around, you come around... What the Snowman Learned About Love – Stars

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-77934061386518176432009-06-19T01:47:00.012-04:002009-06-19T02:14:05.587-04:00

Fifth time in your bedroom And finally, we rested And you leaned upon your elbow And began to speak to me But you stopped yourself and kissed me And I grabbed your wrist and told you I know, I know, I know I feel the same as you The First Five Times – Stars

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-73943686227728610412009-06-19T01:10:00.013-04:002009-06-19T01:40:06.330-04:00

From Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz: "If he's lonely, why does he insist on living like a hermit?" "To escape loneliness–in a young world." "An interesting madness." "I'm not so sure he's mad, Father. Just devious in his sanity." I love that. It's edited from a longer passage, but this is the part that made me smile. The fewer people I have around me, the less alone I feel. It's

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-2740212550973677542009-06-02T00:10:00.005-04:002009-06-19T01:33:13.203-04:00

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology. As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-38181460450764276472009-04-23T14:13:00.006-04:002009-04-23T15:39:25.164-04:00

Another comment: Chairity and Love are the same interchangable. Charity is AGAPE Love. William Tyndale didn't think so. Dictionary.com provides fourteen distinct definitions for the word love and seven for the word charity. If both are equally valid translations of agape, does that mean God has given me twenty-one equally-valid options for discerning what he meant to say? Are there any other

Joshnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-2333326584585145692009-04-23T13:41:00.011-04:002009-04-23T14:59:07.273-04:00

A reader comments: I COR. 2:9-16 If you really want to discover who and what God is, lay down your "intellect" and let God prove himself to you. A few quick thoughts: So Christianity makes sense as long as you don't think very hard about it? The whole point here is that genuine truth can withstand scrutiny. Why the scare quotes around intellect? Is it to suggest that mine isn't particularly

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-10830832766287996232009-04-21T20:56:00.006-04:002009-04-23T14:07:33.868-04:00

A couple of recent reader comments on this post warrant a response. ...these all can be shot down so easily despite your logic... An easy answer and a compelling answer that withstands scrutiny are two very different things. Christian theology is thick with easy answers. It's sorely lacking compelling answers that withstand scrutiny. ...but of course you would have to believe 2 Tim. 3:16 All

Joshnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-85282630952412385332009-04-20T22:25:00.003-04:002009-04-20T23:12:33.380-04:00

I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert them correctly; but there is one that occurs to me that is applicable to the subject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" ... The two questions have different objects; the first refers to the existence of God, the second to his attributes. Reason can discover the one,

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-5090317312542223172009-04-17T23:42:00.003-04:002009-04-18T22:27:41.731-04:00

Watching 400 Years of the Telescope on PBS, I was struck by the description of Copernicus' formulation of his heliocentric model of the solar system. I have no idea if it's historically accurate, but let's assume it is. In short, he was motivated by aesthetics, not physics. He couldn't accept that the heavens could be governed according to Ptolemy's hopelessly complex, convoluted Earth-centric

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-11848206305591364822009-04-17T13:24:00.004-04:002009-04-17T13:34:28.896-04:00

But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations? He could speak but one language, which was Hebrew; and there are in the world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the same language, or understand each other; and as to translations, every man who knows anything of languages, knows that it is impossible to translate from one language into another, not only

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-49210431900165838442009-04-17T13:09:00.001-04:002009-04-17T13:12:52.503-04:00

The probability, therefore, is, that the whole theory or doctrine of what is called the redemption (which is said to have been accomplished by the act of one person in the room of another) was originally fabricated on purpose to bring forward and build all those secondary and pecuniary redemptions upon; and that the passages in the books upon which the idea of theory of redemption is built, have

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-3599791438948737792009-04-17T12:52:00.003-04:002009-04-17T13:08:53.713-04:00

One thing, however, is much less equivocal, which is, that out of the matters contained in those books, together with the assistance of some old stories, the church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty. The

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-92172005870356681362009-04-17T12:20:00.002-04:002009-04-17T12:50:36.615-04:00

That [Jesus' crucifixion] does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all die; and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die faster since the crucifixion than before: and with respect to the second explanation, (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind,) it is impertinently representing the Creator as coming

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-57958330442355378442009-04-17T12:06:00.003-04:002009-04-17T12:19:48.726-04:00

I now go on to the book called the New Testament. The New Testament! That is, the new will, as if there could be two wills of the Creator. I'm familiar with contemporary Christianity's rationale of the dramatic shift in tone and substance from the Old Testament to the New, but I find that rationale unconvincing. There are any number of tics and inconsistencies that make it difficult to view the

Joshnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-68416385542515554792009-04-14T16:15:00.016-04:002009-04-17T13:20:14.898-04:00

If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or accident whatever, in that which we would honour with the name of the Word of God; and therefore the Word of God cannot exist in any written or human language. The continually progressive change to

Joshnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-76713119004288565672009-04-14T15:32:00.005-04:002009-04-17T12:51:06.830-04:00

These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations...are, we are told, the word of God. It is, therefore, proper for us to know who told us so, that we may know what credit to give to the report. ... ...they decided by vote which of the books out of the collection they had made, should be the Word Of God, and which should not. They rejected several; they voted others to be

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-16889236086325665552009-04-09T21:44:00.013-04:002009-04-09T22:14:46.976-04:00

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. ... No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460339.post-8235778299986245022009-04-09T20:38:00.005-04:002009-04-09T21:38:10.347-04:00

Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has

Joshnoreply@blogger.com0