PaulS

On 5/12/2023 at 5:31 PM, tariki said:

A little time today, once again sitting in McDonalds clasping a white coffee, quite amazed that it has now been two months or so since the last price rise. Anyway, one good place to start with Buddhism (the Dharma) is with the Theravada texts/scriptures. If absorbed they can provide a hook on which to hang some of the more speculative ideas and teachings of the Mahayana, which can become a bit of a quagmire to the unwary

One fundamental text is to be found in the Majjhima Nikaya, or "The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha" Sutta 63. The Buddha is speaking to a guy called Malunkyaputta, but could be speaking to anyone who wants to know far far too much before committing themselves to any "path" or "belief system". As Dogen has said elsewhere:-

If there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality.

Anyway, here is the Buddha speaking:-

Suppose, Malunkyaputta, a man were wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and companions brought a surgeon to treat him. The man would say: "I will not let the surgeon pull out the arrow until I know the name and clan of the man who wounded me; whether the bow that wounded me was a long bow or a crossbow; whether the arrow that wounded me was hoof-tipped or curved or barbed.

All this would not be known to that man and meanwhile he would die. So too, Malunkyaputta, if anyone should say: "I will not lead the noble life under the Buddha until the Buddha declares to me whether the world is eternal or not eternal, finite or infinite; whether or not an awakened one continues or ceases to exist after death," that would still remain undeclared by the Buddha and meanwhile that person would die.

One very modern Dharma writer that I like is Stephen Batchelor, a man who comes in for a lot of stick from more doctrinare Buddhists who insist upon certain beliefs. Referring to the above passage from the Majjhima Nikaya, Stephen Batchelor writes:-

Dharma practice requires the courage to confront what it means to be human. All the pictures we entertain of heaven and hell or cycles of rebirth serve to replace the unknown with an image of what is already known. To cling to the idea of rebirth can deaden questioning.
Failure to summon forth the courage to risk a nondogmatic and nonevasive stance on such crucial existential matters can blur our ethical vision. If our actions in the world are to stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by either dogma or prevarication. Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of hope and fear.

Well, I really like that....... an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of hope and fear. It holds such profound promise, not to mention an implied criticism and rejection of much that passes for Religion in our world.

Anyway, more stringing together a few old quotes and thoughts than a Dharma Talk, but I do find a certain therapeutic clarity of mind in tapping this out. 

 

I really like that bold quote too, Tariki.  I think that many religions have something positive to offer in their teachings on how to live a 'good' life, but most (if not all) go that step too far and think that everything they have to offer is the only way to understand life.

On 5/18/2023 at 10:13 PM, romansh said:

Quite often people have asked does it matter if free will exists or not.

And for me, the answer is a very definite perhaps. Recently, the Nobel prize for physics was awarded where a particular aspect (locality versus non-locality) was awarded for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science jointly to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger. Also, there was a recent Nature editorial perpetuating a misconception and a (one page) rebuttal article was written.

The conclusion can be taken as:
Contrary to what is often stated, these observations do not demonstrate that “spooky action at a distance” is real and nature therefore non-local. Rather, the observations show that if nature is local, then statistical independence must be violated.

Interestingly, whether we think we have free will or not affects the interpretation of how the universe ticks. Does this matter? 

Does anything matter?

 

If free will doesn't exist, then one would have no cause to question if anything matters, I think.  If there was no free will, then why would anything occurring matter - we have no genuine say in the occurrences (even if we think we do) so what's the point in thinking it matters?

If one did believe in at least some degree of free will affecting the decisions of our brain, then indeed things do matter as we would have an opportunity to influence them perhaps. I guess one could ask if it matters if we can or can't influence matters through free will, but that's probably another question.

4 hours ago, romansh said:

It's there a few posts down  ... It starts with John1:12-13.

I can see about a dozen posts going back to April 2017, but not this one.  Have you 'Friended' him on Facebook - maybe it's a post only 'Friends' can see?

17 hours ago, romansh said:

Does this work?

Gus Lott | Facebook

Yeah, content not available.  Maybe that post was only shared with people who 'Follow' Gus? I can get to his overall FB page, but not that particular post it seems.

4 hours ago, romansh said:

I think Gus has interesting interpretations. 

Gus Lott - John 1:12-13, "But to all who received him, who... | Facebook

On 4/29/2023 at 5:21 PM, tariki said:

Can these two texts ever be reconciled. Yes, simply by recognising the difference between the Word as Text and the Living Word, a "word" that blows where it will.

I'm not as convinced that the individual authors would agree that their respective writings are pointing to the same thing, but I commend your merits for reconciling them Derek - I think any 'positive vibes' for wellbeing in our world are a good thing. 

I like the poem, and what you have to say, Tariki.  Thanks.

Obviously Bart would disagree with Rex about Jesus if Rex thinks Jesus wasn't being an apocalyptic prophet.  I'm not sure 'journalistic skills' have much particular merit in this field of research and I'd favour Bart's biblical scholarship to Rex's journalistic skills when it comes to better understanding Jesus & the NT, but Rex's ideas are food for thought, for sure.

I don't think the representations we have of Jesus imply he meant NEVER apply judgement (clearly that Jesus encourages people to make a 'choice' about how to live their life - even though evil exists people have a choice whether to practice evil or not).  Rather, Jesus is portrayed as saying don't judge people alone for the position they find themselves in.  Often Jesus seemed to use the 'don't judge' application when he was referring to people of 'lesser' standing in the community - lepers, prostitutes, women, Samaritan's, etc. I think the classic "don't judge a book by it's cover" is more what he meant.  But I could be wrong

13 hours ago, romansh said:

Yes, the apocalypse does seem in contradiction with the "kingdom is already present".

I don't know if it is a contradiction IF Jesus believed that the Kingdom was already present, albeit not yet in it's entirety - i.e. the King is present but hasn't yet ousted those against him that are also currently present in his Kingdom.  Ultimately the King will reign supreme - but in the interim there's a few bugs to work out.

But again, I don't see Jesus as accepting that everything was ALREADY and ALWAYS precisely as God wanted it, simply because he seemed to encourage people changing behaviours, seeking forgiveness, repenting of their sins, etc.  It seems to me to be a strong theme throughout what is attributed to Jesus as his Ministry.  Perhaps he 'accepted' that their was evil, and that God allowed that to exist, but ultimately he seemed to say that God wanted people to choose to behave a certain way.

5 hours ago, romansh said:

And this brings me back to my mantra. What reasons do we have to try and decipher the interpretations of scribes years after the death of a mystic Jew, where these scribes may or may not have had a good handle on where Jesus was going with all this? 

I agree the 'detail' may be challenged, but the overarching message and ministry of Jesus - of him being an apocalyptic prophet and urging the Nation of Israel (maybe gentiles to) to repent and seek God's forgiveness before it's too late, is a pretty widely accepted understanding of Jesus.  Again, why would anyone need forgiveness if they don't have free will?

4 hours ago, romansh said:

We are 'here' because:

1.  It has been postulated that Jesus was a determinist like the Essenes.
2. Jesus's teachings are at odds with Pharisaic and Sadducaical teachings.
3. Some scholars think John the Baptist was an Essene.
4. If Jesus did not believe in 'free will' then that puts a different light on much that goes on in the texts.

That's interesting about JtB - I didn't realise there was speculation he could have been an Essene.  I guess it's not beyond the realms of possibility that as an Essene, John's practice of ritual bathing, later somehow became 'baptism' of others in the biblical texts we have. 

For me, using an Occam's razor approach to what we think we know about Jesus - his whole ministry seems to be about 'seeking forgiveness' from God.  Again I would say that seeking forgiveness doesn't seem to align with thinking that we don't have free will.  If we don't have free will, what do we need to be forgiven of?

Maybe Jesus' message was later transformed by writers?  Maybe Jesus was a 'different' type of Essene?

5 hours ago, romansh said:

[124] They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city; and if any of their sect come from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own; and they go in to such as they never knew before, as if they had been ever so long acquainted with them. For which reason they carry nothing at all with them when they travel into remote parts, though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves. Accordingly, there is, in every city where they live, one appointed particularly to take care of strangers, and to provide garments and other necessaries for them. But the habit and management of their bodies is such as children use who are in fear of their masters. Nor do they allow of the change of or of shoes till be first torn to pieces, or worn out by time. Nor do they either buy or sell any thing to one another; but every one of them gives what he hath to him that wanteth it, and receives from him again in lieu of it what may be convenient for himself; and although there be no requital made, they are fully allowed to take what they want of whomsoever they please.

Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.

Tufts University provided support for entering this text.

 

a link here

Not sure what we're discussing now.  I don't think anybody is calling Qumran an Essene capital (is that what you're getting at?) and yes, they lived scattered throughout the country. And what Josephus is talking about here is all within the Essene sect - i.e. he is talking about how Essenes interact with other Essenes. Interestingly, Josephus seems to either not know that the Qumran community existed, or he didn't feel they were worth writing about.

Yes, Essenes lived in places other than Qumran.  Lots of scholars think Qumran was an Essene community (contrary to your friends uncertainty as to why).  Essene beliefs, according to Bart, didn't align with Jesus' - mainly it would seem around free will (Essenes believed in fate whilst Jesus encouraged repentance and forgiveness - it would seem), and their practices concerning how much to be involved in society (Essenes distanced themselves from society for purity's sake, Jesus got down and dirty with the lowlifes of society).

4 hours ago, romansh said:

I pointed this passage out. The reply:

 I don’t know why some scholars equate essenes with the dead sea community. Josephus talks about them being in every city, not isolated in the desert. He talks about their communal living in wats that are very similar to the stuff in various parts of the New Testament.

Josephus does talk about them being in every city, but he also describes them to an extent that most scholars equate the Dead Sea Scroll Community with Essenes. Here's just one Google quote:

"The vast majority of Dead Sea Scroll scholars are committed to the so-called Essene hypothesis—the belief that the scrolls (or at least those scrolls regarded as “sectarian”) were written by the Essenes, an exotic Jewish movement described at some length by the ancient Jewish historian Josephus.

The Essene hypothesis is based primarily on the writings of Josephus. It is the supposed similarities between Josephus’s description of the Essenes and what we find in the scrolls that leads to the supposedly ineluctable conclusion."

So I guess that's the main reason, but it certainly doesn't mean that Essenes weren't also living amongst civilisation as well, as is clear from Josephus.  It's like lumping all 'Christians' into a single Mormon sect.  I think Bart acknowledges that where he says above "There are in fact very solid reasons for thinking Jesus was not a member of the Qumran community or any other group of Essenes." So he's acknowledging that Essenes exist beyond the DSC community.

But whether living in cities or in Qumran, Essenes were a stand-alone sect that had beliefs Bart thinks didn't align with Jesus - principally their distancing of themselves from the rest of the community (even whilst they lived amongst the general population).

21 hours ago, tariki said:

"I understand correctly, me being the true christian and thus the Spirit guides me correctly as promised." 

I do miss being so damned certain of everything though! :)

1 hour ago, tariki said:

Strange that with the great commandment to love your neighbour as yourself, the perfection of the Christian life is reached when one is able to live in eternal bliss while most of your "neighbours" are in torment. 

I asked my mother this once - "Mum, how will you feel in this wonderful place called Heaven whilst your only son is suffering eternal torment and pain in Hell?"

She replied that she would feel "Sad", before my Father jumped in a reassured me that I'd be going to heaven because I gave my life to Jesus when I was 14!  I'm a little skeptical that Jesus having my life for some 4 years is enough of a qualifier though!

But if it is, I guess I'll just feel 'sad' for my wife, children and most other people whom I love dearly then!

14 hours ago, tariki said:

Way back when I broke away from an extreme form of Christianity (the usual "born again" onewayers) I said to one of the brethren that I subscribed to Universalism. ALL were to be saved (whatever "saved" might mean......😀 ) His response was then "what is the point"? If such is so, why evangelize? Why a Bible?

I have previously experienced the same and it seems to me that such people feel it's "unfair" that everyone gets saved.  They don't feel "justice" is served.  Strange from a religion that supposedly puts love above all else, but then again, their primary teaching is that it is okay for the vast majority of humankind to suffer eternal torment because they didn't make the right 'decision' in their short three score years and ten here in this life.

7 hours ago, romansh said:

While dualism may well have been typical of the time, was Jesus typical of Jewish tradition? He may well have been apocalyptic, but that does not rule out other flavours as well.

No, it doesn't rule out other flavours, and it is likely Jesus was his own kind of apocalypticist (which is what probably made him stand out at the time and thereafter - maybe he thought he was the Messiah, maybe he didn't).  Jesus perhaps thought nobody had free will and when the apocalypse came and that those lucky enough to have been mandated by fate would be the ones to inherit the new kingdom.  But to me, his messages throughout the Gospels seem to indicate people are to make a decision as to what side they want to be on, before it's too late.

Another reason why I think Jesus likely believed in free will, was his apparent belief that people could be forgiven by God under certain circumstances - not that 'all' automatically would.  For me, if Jesus thought nobody had free will, then I think it's reasonable that Jesus would expect 'all' to be forgiven.  After all, what fault is it of a Roman Governor if he has no free will in determining whether to follow the path of evil or good? Why would he need 'forgiving' of something that was not in his control?

7 hours ago, romansh said:

What does Bart say about Jesus and Essene?

Here's a little about how Bart Ehrman compares Jesus to Essene thought:

One of the reasons scholars occasionally associated Jesus with the Essenes is that he, like them, preached a thoroughly apocalyptic message.  The present age, in both their views, was controlled by forces of evil; but God was soon to intervene to destroy the forces of evil and bring in a good kingdom on earth to be run by his messiah (or messiahs).   There was soon to be a mass destruction of all that was opposed to God and the people and kingdoms that aligned themselves with these alien forces.  And included among those to be wiped out were the leaders of Israel.

Since this message, in rough outline, was found in both Jesus and the DSS, doesn’t that make it plausible that Jesus was a member of the community where the scrolls were found, in a place called Qumran in the Judean dessert?

There are in fact very solid reasons for thinking Jesus was not a member of the Qumran community or any other group of Essenes.   For starters, our only sources for Jesus (however many you count) never say anything about him belonging to a group of apocalyptically minded Jews before his ministry, and in fact never mention the Essenes, at all.  They are the only major group of Jews from the time not mentioned in the NT (contrast Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests, zealots, etc….).

That in itself is not particularly decisive of course.  But it should give one pause.  More important is this.  We know from the DSS that the reason this community was located in isolation in Qumran, out away from civilization, was because of the particular religious views of the community.  These Essenes believed that since the world around them had grown so corrupt, they needed to separate themselves from it.  Even the Jewish leaders – those running the Temple in Jerusalem, for example – were lost in the eyes of God; and the mass of Jewish people were a polluted race.   These Essenes believed that it was important for them to preserve their own purity in the face of the impure world around them, and they located to the desert precisely so they would not be contaminated by the sinners of the rest of the world.

This is precisely the opposite approach of Jesus.  He too thought the end was coming soon.  But he was not interested in preserving his own ritual and moral purity in the face of widespread corruption.  He shows very little concern at all for Jewish purity regulations (either of the Essenes or the Pharisees, whom, by the way, the Essenes considered to be lightweights).  And rather than remove himself from the sinners of the world, Jesus mixed and mingled with them.  So much did he do so that he was roundly accused and slandered for being friends with the lowlifes, the tax collectors (notorious sinners) and prostitutes.   Morever, Jesus thought these were the ones who were going to inherit the kingdom, not the highly religious and morally and ritually pure.   This was a very, very different kind of apocalyptic thinking from that reflected in the DSS.

John the Baptist too believed in taking his message to the sinners.  He and Jesus agreed with the Essenes that the end was coming soon and people needed to prepare.  But there idea about what it took to prepare was quite at odds.   They would have seen each other as getting the message precisely wrong.  Jesus did not learn his views at Qumran (neither did John).  On the contrary, he would have seen the Qumran community as completely missing the boat.

5 hours ago, romansh said:

Paul ... your reply seems to indicate that Jesus somehow believed we had free will and that god will take control at some point. Who or what did Jesus think was in control during his time?

 

I think Jesus was an apocalypticist - he thought a major act of God was about to occur (in people's lifetimes at the time) which would see God's Kingdom installed on earth and the powers of evil would be overthrown.  Those who aligned with the powers of evil would be destroyed, and those who followed God would survive and rule.  Jesus was telling people to align themselves with God before it was too late.  So to this end, yes, I do think that Jesus believed people had free will and the ability to choose which path to follow. Dualism is/was a typical trait of apocalyptic thought in Jesus' day, and belief in dualism correlates with belief in free will.

15 hours ago, romansh said:

So if, Jesus thought we did not have free will, it makes being saved an interesting concept.

I'm pretty convinced these days that Jesus didn't expect people to be 'saved', but rather was telling them the time was at hand for God to restore his authority over the earth and mankind, so start living now (in Jesus day) as though God was already in charge.  It wasn't until after Jesus' death and when it was obvious the Kingdom wasn't coming in their lifetime as promised, that representations of Jesus and his message began to change into what we now see as the Jesus cult and Christianity.

Following an article recently posted on here written by progressive Christian Quaker pastor, Phil Gulley, the question was asked about what exactly it is that Christians think that Jesus needs to save us from.  Now I think Phil was more referring to the quality of life we may lead and that Jesus' influence could bring about a greater quality (Phil doesn't believe any longer in an eternal hell), but I know that's not what traditional Christianity has taught.  TC teaches that we are all going to hell, except for those who have the good sense to believe that Jesus dying on the cross was an act of God, required in order that God may accept those who believe this act was on their behalf, so they alone will pass through to the pearly gates.

Now I get that generations of people before the early 1800's did not have the knowledge to understand that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors, or that humans exactly like you & I have actually been walking this earth for at least 150,000 years, and our 'lesser developed' ancestors some 5-7 million years before that.  It seems to me that the only genuine way to reconcile traditional Christian teachings of mankind requiring 'salvation' in the traditional sense) is to completely deny evolution, and the existence of homo sapiens for some 150,000 years.

When traditional Christians so convincingly believe that God wants them to accept Jesus Christ as their saviour in order to make it to Heaven, do they not stop to ask themselves what God had in mind for humans for the other 148,000 years or so? But if they do, how on earth can they reconcile 150,000 years of needing to be saved, with the existence of one person only about 2000 years ago?

Thanks Rom,

I've been having a break in Bali with my wife and just returned home yesterday.  Thanks for posting.

For myself, I think 'understanding' is still limiting.  I like 'acceptance' better.  I don't need to understand a transgender person's mind to accept them.  I don't need to understand the lifestyle of somebody from a different country to accept them.  I don't need to understand what somebody growing up in a low socioeconomic demographic goes through to accept them as a fellow person.  So to that point, I do think love (unremitted acceptance of another - as long as they are causing no harm to another) is closer to the point than 'understanding'.  Maybe we can 'understand' that there are things about others that we'll never understand, but we can accept them and love them anyway.  Just my two bob's worth.

As for 'salvation' - I do think this is an outdated concept.  We don't need to be saved from anything other than ourselves - but to that end I mean that there are ways we can live a happier and more satisfying existence.  If people use what they understand as the teachings of Jesus to lead a happier and more fulfilling life, all power to them.  Similarly for those that use Allah, Buddah, Brahma or science  as a guiding light for how to live a satisfying and fulfilling life. Whatever it takes I say - as long as you intentionally do no harm to another.

On 3/22/2023 at 3:38 AM, romansh said:

It would seem our Phil does not think Jesus was born God incarnate. Presumably, he thinks he did not rise from the dead either. I realize that this is perfectly in tune with Progressive Christianity, but it would seem an anathema to the bulk of Christianity. Phil is on his way to joining the likes of Gretta Vosper and John Shelby Spong.

He is indeed, but as you point out, this is pretty 'on-point' for Progressive Christianity and a better understanding of the historical Jesus - not the myth that later became the Jesus Cult.

More from Phil:

When I was a kid, we had two dogs and a cat claimed by my siblings. I kept telling my mother I wanted a pet of my very own, and she kept resisting, not wanting another to tend another pet. But then I contracted a serious illness that our family doctor, Doctor Kirtley, couldn’t diagnose, finally speculating it was some exotic, mysterious disease that had never been seen in Danville, brought to our town by a carnival worker. The carnival set up on the town square every summer and anything bad that happened while they were in town was laid at their feet—thefts, disturbances of every sort, fires, disease. One time a woman in town ran off with a carnival worker, then returned to Danville in a family way, and gave birth to a little carnie baby, who emerged from the womb sporting a tattoo and smoking a Marlboro.

So there I was, near-death, my mother hovering over me, and she asked, “What can I get you?” and I said, “A pet.” She got her purse, climbed in her pea-green 1969 Plymouth Valiant, and drove to Danner’s Five and Dime on the town square, returning home with a cage and two gerbils, which she named Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome. I had never heard those names, not being a student of Roman mythology, but we had a set of World Book Encyclopedias, so I looked up Romulus and Remus and was shocked to discover they were considered gods.

 What in the world was my Catholic mother thinking, naming our gerbils after pagan gods? Had she lost her mind? I kept reading the World Book Encyclopedia and discovered there were other historical figures thought to be divine—Egyptian Pharaohs, Chinese and Japanese Emperors, Julius Caesar, Homer, Alexander the Great, and Mary, Mother of Jesus, just to name a few. I read their names aloud to my parents and my father said, “Don’t forget Babe Ruth,” so him, too.

Up until then, I thought Jesus had the divine market all to himself. I’d had no idea that humankind had been in the god-making business since our earliest days, all the way back to Ishtar of Mesopotamia, the goddess of love and war, the first deity for whom we have written evidence. Isn’t theology fascinating?

We’ve been talking about the importance of good theology, that the antidote to bad theology is good theology. We remember the words of Bishop John Spong who said there is not conservative theology or liberal theology, there is only bad theology and good theology. Bad theology gives birth to many cultural disorders, including Christian Nationalism, this toxic mix of partisan politics, white supremacy, and evangelical Christianity, a movement many in our nation seem eager to embrace.

We’ve spent the past two weeks reflecting on the nature of God, so today I invite us to consider Jesus and, more specifically, to consider how Jesus became God and why. When I say Jesus became God, what I mean to say is that the divinity of Jesus was a human invention, that as a first-century monotheistic Jew, Jesus would have likely rejected any claim to divinity. We see hints of this in the Bible, one in Luke’s gospel, when a religious leader called Jesus “good teacher,” and Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Time and again, we see in his humility and humanity an unwillingness to elevate himself. Jesus was not a narcissist demanding worship, he was a servant inviting others to serve with him.

But because humans are exceptionally good god-makers, we promoted Jesus from teacher to God in the centuries following his death, until formally defining his nature at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., oddly enough by voting on it. It was almost inevitable this would happen, given our propensity for elevating our heroes. In Jesus’s lifetime, and in the centuries following, the Roman Empire and their divine “emperor” had a powerful grip on Israel and the surrounding nations. The early Church refuted that claim, chiefly by elevating Jesus. It was an early example of “sticking it to the man.” As you can imagine, this was not warmly received by Rome, and Christians were persecuted until gaining political favor under the Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion, an event we welcomed, but now must surely regret, not realizing it would one day lead to televangelists and Ted Cruz.

We are exceptionally good God-makers. We want to pay homage to those persons whose lives have been meaningful to us, so we grant them divine status. It’s our way of saying someone embodies the finest virtues we can imagine. When the early Church claimed Jesus was divine, they were saying the priorities and values of Jesus exemplified divine priorities and values. For the early Church, it was not enough to say Jesus was a good person. They wanted him to be a good god. While I understand that, I regret that it has devalued the intrinsic value of what it means to be human. So now we have this lopsided equation where humanity resides on a lower plane than divinity. But I believe Jesus had a high regard for humanity and is not honored by our diminishment. For Jesus to be good, it does not follow that we must be bad.

I think there’s another reason we create gods. Just as soon as we elevate someone to divine status, we give ourselves an excuse not to be like them. Oh, I could never be like Jesus, he’s God, after all. Even though Jesus seemed to clearly expect his followers to do what he did and live like he lived. Indeed, he told them they would do even greater things than he had done. That doesn’t sound like a god to me. That sounds like a man with a high regard for human potential.

We don’t honor Jesus by making him God, by crowning him King and installing him as the head of the state religion, thereby investing his followers with worldly power, and forcing him, and ourselves, upon others.

We honor Jesus when we live as he lived, when we heal, when we have good news for the poor, when we love the outsider, when we lift up the oppressed, when we embrace our enemies, and set the prisoners free. Jesus is not elevated by our words, but by our actions, by our steadfast determination to do what he did with glad and joyful hearts.

More from Phil:

When I was a kid there was this boy in my catechism class named Matt, who, though appearing human, was thought to be demonic. When Father McLaughlin at our Catholic Church gave a sermon in which he described the devil, everyone turned and looked at Matt. Here’s how bad Matt was, that once when I was standing beside him in the communion line, I could smell sulfur, and when I looked closely at his head, I saw the nubbins of little horns, poking through his fire-singed hair.

Danville was a small town then, so I knew Matt’s parents, and even his grandparents. One day I was with my mother at Kroger’s and we bumped into Matt’s grandmother, so my mother stopped to chat with her. His grandmother looked at me, smiled, and said, “You look about the same age as our sweet little Matt.” I didn’t know who she was talking about because the Matt I knew was diabolical, like Norman Bates in Psycho, which had been filmed the very year Matt was born, 1960. A coincidence? I think not.

It was one of my earliest experiences with the notion of contradictions. To me, Matt was the Prince of Darkness who gave me wedgies, lifting me high in the air until my underwear tore. But to his grandmother, Matt was sweet and cuddly and snuggled in her lap while she read him stories. How in the world could we be talking about the same person? It was a mystery to me.

I feel that same discrepancy when I hear some people talk about God. In one moment, God curses, in the next moment, God blesses. The ancient polytheists had it easier when it came to God. When you worship many gods, and a flood carries your house away, you can shake your fist at the rain god, and then when the sun comes out and dries everything up, you can fall to your knees and praise the sun god. But when you only have one god, that one god must contain all the divine activity, and before long you can’t help but wonder how the same god can be responsible for everything that happens. If your child dies in a car wreck, you wonder why God would do that to you? A few years later, your first grandchild is born and you hold her in your arms and thank God for her precious beautiful life. Notice how the exact same God cursed you and blessed you. How does that make sense?

Last week, we took notice of the theological illiteracy in our culture, which can have troubling effects, one of which is Christian Nationalism, this noxious notion that white American Christians are uniquely loved and blessed by God, that white American Christians, especially males, should enjoy rights and privileges others don’t, that it is appropriate to write their hate into law, thereby using the considerable weight of government to further their theological and political objectives, all the while making their hatred seem virtuous and noble. But we know better, don’t we.

This effort can, of course, be challenged in the political arena by not voting for Christian Nationalists. But it must also be challenged in the spiritual arena since their understanding of God is at the root of their sacrilege. Their image of God is not just wrong, but dangerous, and must be countered by good theology. The only solution to the ravages of bad theology is good theology, which is theology that believes the best about God and humankind and not the worst.

Toward that end, I want to talk today about what God cannot do. Sometimes we hear Christians say God can do anything. If something bad happens to us or is about to happen to us, they urge us to have faith, telling us God can do anything. There’s a woman in my extended family who writes this on people’s Facebook page when they post about some difficulty they’re having. “God can do anything,” she says, then adds a little smiley face with praying hands.

After she writes that God can do anything, I want to write, “No, God can’t.”

We must disabuse ourselves of the belief, instilled in us since childhood, that God can do anything, that God is all powerful. Because just as soon as we were taught that, we were also taught that God is all-loving and all-knowing. This the trinity of bad theology, God is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing, and it causes untold human misery.

After all, if God is all-loving and all-knowing and all-powerful, then why are their bullies? Or worse! Why does God allow starvation? Or the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans? Or slavery? Or the Holocaust?  Why does God seem to have the infuriating habit of entrusting beautiful, innocent babies to drug addicts and alcoholics?

The formula doesn’t work, does it? It makes no sense. If God has the power to stop such things, knew they were going to happen, and didn’t stop them, that God is not loving. I would have stopped it, you would have stopped it, but God didn’t stop it? Who wouldn’t stop those things? Apparently, God. If this is true, let’s dispense with worshiping this God, admiring this God, loving this God.

Of course, another option exists, we can re-examine our theology and consider the possibility that maybe some of the things we’ve been told about God aren’t true. We’ve got to give up this fantasy about God’s power. That’s what we would want if we were God, isn’t it? We’d want power. It’s almost as if the early church fathers sat around a table thinking this stuff up. Can’t you just see them pushing back from dinner, glasses of wine in their hands, feeling slightly buzzed and philosophical?

“What would you do if you were God,” one of them would ask.

“Oh, I’d want the power to make people do what I wanted,” another would say.

“Yeah, I like that, that’s a good one.”

“I’d want to have knowledge of the future,” said another.

“That’s smart. That would come in handy.”

Then one of the church fathers, a quiet kind of guy the others often overlooked, said, “If I were God, I would be all-loving.”

The others thought of that, and one of them said, “Nah, too hard. Let’s go with power and knowledge.”

So here we are, saddled with a theology that has driven more people to atheism than any other reason. Not to mention made some people miserable. People whose lives have been one long painful struggle, only to be told it was God’s will.

Forget power. Forget knowing the future. Keep love.

“Let us see what love can do,” said the Quaker William Penn.

Not “Let us see what power can do.”

Not “Not let us see what omniscience can do.”

Let us see what love can do.

Friends, love is the only tool at God’s disposal. It is the only note God sings.

Not power. Not foresight. Just love. In our life together, in our lives in this world, let’s do what God does and see what love can do.

10 hours ago, romansh said:

I am fairly sure your science of god being Christian is pretty much a Western point of view. Islam and Subcontinental religions will likely have their own god science departments.

No doubt.

10 hours ago, romansh said:

Behave is a tough book ... (remember the last four pages ... if you feel the need to give up.) 

Yeah - my intention was ot get it out for free and read those 4 pages, like you suggest.  My reading list is already pretty full! I did read (well, listened to the audiobook) of The Grand Design.  I liked it, but it still doesn't resolve the unresolvable.  It certainly gives plenty of good reasons to understand the world not as a product of a supernatural God, but rather an explainable occurrence (to a large degree).

10 hours ago, romansh said:

Yeah ... I keep pounding away at this. Nature versus nurture debate. There is no dichotomy here ... there is no separation between us and the environment (universe). The separation ... is an illusion.

Agreed.  However within our existence there are differences between how people act which is resultant from nature, nurture and experience, is what I mean.