At its best Christianity is internally coherent, yes, and the ultimate adjunct to reality. But it’s best is not what even most of its adherents are free to believe.
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I would say that at bottom, much of religion came about through man’s numinous experiences with the natural world and his anthropocentric attempt to rationalize them. Now this certainly wasn’t always the case; some religions have formed from the intentions of powerful people (or perhaps demons, though that is much harder to prove). However, there is no reason to believe that the whole thing got started from a couple of mustache-twirling cavemen seeking to make Grug do their bidding.
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This was always the case, certainly for the first 80-400,000 years (as long as we’ve been talking). ‘Civilized’ religion of the past 5 is a by-product of settlement. It’s still church-state, shaman-chief. It has absolutely nothing to do causally with ‘demons’ any more than it has to do with divine intervention.
Hi Marvin, can you explain a bit what you mean by this? Thanks.
Hello Martin,
What is this “best”? Would you please explain?
Thanks.
Best is shorn of evil for a start. Damnationism, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, racism, placism, ignorance, arrogance, intellectual dishonesty, anti-intellectualism - both whilst claiming intellectuality, literalism to any degree due to the historical-grammatic method.
We then make up the best from what’s left. Nature and Jesus. Himself shorn of any of the above.
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Thank you for explaining.
@Klax , you often mention Jesus. He seems to be the last part of Christianity left to you. Who is he? What makes him believable?
Thanks.
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For a start recognizing that there is only one meaning of righteousness. Social justice.
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I pursue Christianity from a logical and scientific point of view. To demand internal coherence in a worldview leads you to an entirely different understanding of Jesus that you will commonly find. A logical Christ is not born in an act of magic that is irrational and an exemption to nature but in agreement with it. I do not admire a God that can outmanoeuvre reality because his reality is not logically coherent but a God that can create a coherent reality. So I do not belive in a God that does magic tricks to impress us but that shows us how love and logic is the defeater of all evil. His miracles show us how his word can turn acts of hate and oppression into bacons of love and hope by living his word.
So when Jesus turned water into wine he did IMO not make fine booze to impress the materialistic inclined but showed me that the water of purification is the most valuable wine I can ever receive as it is the water of life that no amount of alcohol can compete with. Jesus for me was not a man who created a fake reality to impress the gullible but a man who transformed reality in a way that puts our materialistic / physicalist worldview to shame.
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@Kendel and no, I do not believe Jesus was a social justice warrior , not that nodded to everyone to tell them their lifestyle was okay as an expression of his love to everyone.
is a good lecture on that one 
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Marvin,
Thank you for explaining your view on Jesus as well as the nature of what I would call miracles.
I was a Christian long before I knew much about science, and I certainly know much less about science than a lot of people here. I’m sure you are way past me there. I am grateful that God provides salvation through His Son for both the wise as well as the foolish.
Regarding the term “magic”, I recommend handling it with care. I, too, have used it flippantly in conversations with Lutheran friends regarding baptism. My view of baptism, at the time, was nearly as materialistic as I understand your view of whatever happened (or didn’t) to that water in your description. My friends were far more patient and gracious than I was. They tolerated my outburst with love.
But “magic” really is a fairly technical term, which has to do with human attempts to manipulate the metaphysical. It is closely related with gnosis. Attributing it to God in the way you do, as a criticism of fellow followers of Jesus, does not fit your own aspirations to turn acts of hate and oppression into beacons of love and hope by his living word. I recommend that you find a different approach to discussing these differences.
Some of your fellow Christians understand God to have power over his own universe that is his to handle as He sees fit, and who chooses in what manner he sees fit, to make Himself known to the foolish of us, who otherwise would be unaware of his presence.
I would be interested in knowing more about the way you have come to your understanding of who Jesus is.
Thanks.
And why is God difficult to understand in your opinion? Because he can’t present himself more clearly to us, humans, or because he’s unwilling to do that?
Oops. I missed this earlier. Thanks. I will catch up and read the article you shared.
Nice and brief. Clear.
So, what do you think were Jesus’s role and purpose, however you want to describe it? How did/will he accomplish it. Etc.
I think it has more to do with us – we’re material and temporal, and that will always limit our understanding.
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I was about to say something similar but from a secular standpoint. I think
may be because that which gives rise to God belief isn’t an individual being at all and doesn’t use language the way we do. Or maybe because what it is does, how it does it, and why it does what it does is just not something we are equipped to make sense of. Frankly I don’t think what has given rise to God belief is omni-anything, but I do think it knows more about what matters in our lives than we do.
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And why do you think that? Is this based on some evidence or a distant hope that it’s the case, since we long to make sense of it all?
Here is one illustration on how a suggestion that there is something guiding it all plays out in at least one person’s life.
It is basically out of regard for what I take to be the totality of ourselves. Consciousness has a much greater bandwidth than that which we access consciously. But intuitively we can sometimes access insight which isn’t something we build up from the bits we can hold consciously in mind. God isn’t what people have traditionally come to believe but then neither are we. I don’t expect you to like that answer.
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Sorry! Missed this. Aye, He is. My desire. Despite pruning down to the stump, there is the remembrance of a dream. I’m amazed that there’s any life in it [at] all. Who is He? Either the greatest human conspiracy ever told, or God incarnate. The novel, Mary’s Boy, writes itself with all the best will in the world. Culture made the ultimate different God. And actually becomes so incredible that it tilts over, C.S. Lewis style.
He is believable for me because if God grounds, zens, being, the antithesis of that is incarnation. At the first and best time and place. Stepping in to a homespun carpenter’s sandals in the dust of a remote Roman province, forcing it to kill Him, and sticking in the world’s throat and convulsing it ever since.
Despite everything that is human about Him, despite Him being right for the wrong reason - the barbarous, all but Godless OT - despite the most sublime deed - the Pericope Adulterae - being a myth centuries - over five in its finale edit - upon a myth. Despite all fully justifiable warrant of doubt, of disbelief, including of obscene theology built on Him distorted through the OT.
He endures. The love of God.
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Thank you for this.
(You didn’t see it because of my mistake.)
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