Awesomeness. I have to say though that I am becoming beibered by the “mythical Jesus” arguments.

1. Why would Jews try to create and spread a religion by borrowing from pagan stories that the people they were trying to convert (jews) would find detestable? Seems like a bad strategy.

2. These people who argue for a “mythical Jesus” routinely use Christian language to describe pagan events and then sit back in mock wonder at the parallels. For example, you always hear how the resurrection of Jesus is a parallel to the “resurrection” of Osiris. But there really is no parallel when you look into it! Osiris was cut into pieces and patched back together to rule as the zombified lord of the hades. Horus was “baptized”…… by being torn into pieces and having his coffin thrown into a river. Mithras was “baptized” because someone slit a bulls throat and spilled blood over his head. He had “twelve disciples”, and we are supposed to know that because….. there is a mural where Mithras is surrounded by the 12 signs of the zodiac. These arguments are weak. Super weak.

3. William lane Craig breaks down why this movement hasn’t had any traction in the academic world for over a hundred years in the link provided below.

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/jesus-and-pagan-mythology

Christian,

How familiar are you with demythologization, a term popularized by protestant liberal Rudolf Bultmann?

I went through a period interested in protestant liberals before i settled on reformed protestantism. Bultmann wrote a lot on the topic and is one of the big four of 20th century prots (Barth, Bultmann, Tillich, and Niebuhr).

I think you should explore it a little bit, in light of what you and Jason talked about in this cast of a pod.

Curious for yours or Jason thoughts,
Andrew

Christian,

Yes and no.

I’ve studied bultmann, and by all means, if you have theologians who are on this thread, I would defer to them. In the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we have an expert on Bultmann, who I have read and would go to for further questions.

What Bultmann was trying to do (and this is me being generous) was to save Xtianity from becoming irrelevant, a superstitious religion that the doctrines of modernism could not co-exist with. So during the 30’s, his ideas became popular among intellecutals, intelligentsia, what have you.

The problem for a supernatural Xtian as myself is I have to ask the question of his scheme – at what cost to you accomodate the spirit of the age (good ref jason, 1 cor, no?) in order to remain relevant? I would argue the cost was too great, and indeed, Bultmann would sell the very Jesus I love to try to remain a relevant player on the world stage.

Look, I could go on and on. You guys are the ex-pastors, I sit in an office and just eat popcorn as I watch the comments fly and the pods be created. I think these are massive questions you guys raise, so props. But I mean, there’s a mockery of Xtianity I find in your podcasts at times that makes it so I can just sit back and enjoy my buttery goodness. Keep going, by all means.

But masturbation, really? Are we 13?

I’m out.

Peace to you boys and your fun games.

Regards,
Andrew

Christian,

Ok, I’ll pipe down.

It’s just gross, mixed in with stuff I care about.

I realize I may not be your target audience.

Thanks for the show, looking forward to next week,

Andrew

You’re a hoot.

Give Chloe (sp?) a hug from creepy uncle DXP stalker Andrew (Kenneth will get that).

Peace.

Also my Bieber is the quote, “Sin will keep you from this book, but this book will keep you from sin.”

No… no it won’t. If reading the bible kept folks from sinning, most of the epistles to the churches wouldn’t need to have been written, the Pharisees wouldn’t have rejected Christ, churches would be full of perfect people (and devoid of church politics), and history in many parts of the world would read much differently.

@Christian & @Andrew – Well, I guess Andrew specifically, why is it that Christians find natural bodily functions so icky and not fit for conversation?

For me as a non-Christian, I think what Stephen Fry said makes a lot of sense: why is the Christian God so capricious and mean spirited? And on a related point, having done my own fair share of online dating, I find so many Christian girls whose profile have some version of fear of God. Yes, many/most say that they love Jesus (which I understand) but it seems like what largely drives Christianity is fear?

Hi Greg,

So your vote is for Christian to go into more details about his masturbation techniques? It’s ok for us to be apart on this issue, it’s not salvific in my mind.

As for the fear on this thread, as the token Bible believer, I thought I would drop a quote:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

source

Peace,
Andrew

Greg,

Are you a fan of the theater?

I believe in God. And the only think that scares me is Kaiser Soze.

But in all seriousness and back to reality, I can all but guarantee that wherever you are (and I’m right behind you?) there’s a presbyterian or reformed pastor within driving distance. If you have a car, I’m sure you could drive to him (or her?) and ask all sorts of theology questions.

As for the quote, it’s from the Bible. I like the Bible, ya know. Have you read it?

Peace,
Andrew

Chapter 8: “What Is Truth?”

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; . . . For the law was
given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ
JOHN 1:14, 17.

Why do you not understand what I say? . . . you are of your father the devil . . . He was a

murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with truth, because there is no truth in

him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of

lies.

JOHN 8:43, 44.

Pilate said to him, “So you are a king? ” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I
was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who
is of the truth hears my voice. “Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
JOHN 18:37, 38.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. ”
JOHN 14:6.

He who does what is true, comes to the light
JOHN 3:21.

And I will pray the Father, and he will give you . . .the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and
will be in you.
JOHN 14:16, 17.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.
JOHN 16:13.

Let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and know s God.
He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
IJOHN4:7, 8.

Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in Him, “If you continue in my word, you are
truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. ”
JOHN 8:31, 32.

In the above passages there are words in which Jesus speaks about truth. Another of these
words shall be the center of our meditation, the word in which He combines truth and
freedom: “The truth will make you free.”

The question of truth is universally human; but like everything human it was first manifest on
a special place in a special group. It was the Greek mind in which the passionate search for
truth was most conspicuous; and it was the Greek world in which, and to which, the Gospel of
John was written. The words, here said by Jesus, are, according to ancient custom, put into
His mouth by the evangelist who wanted to show the answer of Christianity to the central
question of the Hellenic mind: the question of truth. The answer is given also to us, for we,
too, ask the question of truth. And some of us ask it as passionately, and sometimes as
desperately, as the Greeks did.

It is often at an early age that we are moved by the desire for truth. When I, myself, as a
fifteen-year-old boy received the words of our text as the motto for my future life from the
confirming minister, who happened to be my father, I felt that this was just what I was
looking for; and I remember that I was not alone in my group with this longing for truth. But I
also observed, in myself and in others, that the early passion for truth is due to be lost in the
adolescent and adult years of our lives. How does this happen?

The truth the child first receives is imposed upon him by adults, predominantly by his parents.
This cannot be otherwise; and he cannot help accepting it. The passion for truth is silenced by
answers which have the weight of undisputed authority, be it that of the mother or the father,
or an older friend, or a gang, or the representatives of a social pattern. But sooner or later the
child revolts against the truth given to him. He denies the authorities either all together, or one
in the name of the other. He uses the teachers against the parents, the gang against the
teachers, a friend against the gang, society against the friend.

This revolt is as unavoidable as was his early dependence on authority. The authorities gave
him something to live on, the revolt makes him responsible for the truth he accepts or rejects.

But whether in obedience or in revolt, the time comes when a new way to truth is opened to
us, especially to those in academic surroundings: The way of scholarly work. Eagerly we take
it. It seems so safe, so successful, so independent of both authority and willfulness. It liberates
from prejudices and superstitions; it makes us humble and honest. Where else, besides in
scholarly work, should we look for truth? There are many in our period, young and old,
primitive and sophisticated, practical and scientific, who accept this answer without
hesitation. For them scholarly truth is truth altogether. Poetry may give beauty, but it certainly
does not give truth. Ethics may help us to a good life, but it cannot help us to truth. Religion
may produce deep emotions, but it should not claim to have truth. Only science gives us truth.
It gives us new insights into the way nature works, into the texture of human history, into the
hidden things of the human mind. It gives a feeling of joy, inferior to no other joy. He who
has experienced this transition from darkness, or dimness, to the sharp light of knowledge will
always praise scientific truth and understanding and say with some great medieval

theologians, that the principles through which we know our world are the eternal divine light
in our souls. And yet, when we ask those who have finished their studies in our colleges and
universities whether they have found there a truth which is relevant to their lives they will
answer with hesitation. Some will say that they have lost what they had of relevant truth;
others will say that they don’t care for such a truth because life goes on from day to day
without it. Others will tell you of a person, a book, an event outside their studies which gave
them the feeling of a truth that matters. But they all will agree that it is not the scholarly work
which can give truth relevant for our life.

Where else, then, can we get it? “Nowhere,” Pilate answers in his talk with Jesus. “What is
truth?” he asks, expressing in these three words his own and his contemporaries’ despair of
truth, expressing also the despair of truth in millions of our contemporaries, in schools and
studios, in business and professions. In all of us, open or hidden, admitted or repressed, the
despair of truth is a permanent threat. We are children of our period as Pilate was. Both are
periods of disintegration, of a world-wide loss of values and meanings. Nobody can separate
himself completely from this reality, and nobody should even try. Let me do something
unusual from a Christian standpoint, namely, to express praise of Pilate — not the unjust judge,
but the cynic and sceptic; and of all those amongst us in whom Pilate’s question is alive. For
in the depth of every serious doubt and every despair of truth, the passion for truth is still at
work. Don’t give in too quickly to those who want to alleviate your anxiety about truth. Don’t
be seduced into a truth which is not really your truth, even if the seducer is your church, or
your party, or your parental tradition. Go with Pilate, if you cannot go with Jesus; but go in
seriousness with him!

Twofold are the temptations to evade the burden of asking for the truth that matters. The one
is the way of those who claim to have the truth and the other is the way of those who do not
care for the truth. The first ones are called “the Jews” in our gospel. They point to their
tradition which goes back to Abraham. Abraham is their father; so they have all truth, and do
not need to be worried by the question which they encounter in Jesus. Many among us.
Christians and secularists, are “Jews” in the sense of the Fourth Gospel. They point to their
tradition which goes back to the Church Fathers, or to the popes, or to the Reformers, or to the
makers of the American Constitution. Their church or their nation is their mother, so they
have all truth and do not need to worry about the question of truth. Would Jesus tell them,
perhaps, what He told the Jews — that even if the church or the nation is their mother, they
carry with them the heritage of the father of untruth; that the truth they have is not the truth
which makes free? Certainly there is no freedom where there is self-complacency about the
truth of one’s own beliefs. There is no freedom where there is ignorant and fanatical rejection
of foreign ideas and ways of life. There is not freedom but demonic bondage where one’s own
truth is called the ultimate truth. For this is an attempt to be like God, an attempt which is
made in the name of God.

There is the second way of avoiding the question of truth — the way of not caring for it, of
indifference. It is the way of the majority of the people today, as well as at the time of Jesus.
Life, they say to themselves, is a mixture of truth, half-truth and falsehood. It is quite possible
to live with his mixture, to muddle through most of the difficulties of life without asking the
question of a truth that matters ultimately. There may be boundary situations, a tragic event, a
deep spiritual fall, death. But as long as they are far removed, the question of truth can also
stay far away. Hence, the common attitude — a little bit of Pilate’s scepticism, especially in
things which it is not dangerous today to doubt, as, for instance, God and the Christ; and a
little bit of the Jew’s dogmatism, especially in things which one is requested to accept today.

as, for instance, an economic or political way of life. In other words, some scepticism and
some dogmatism, and a shrewd method of balancing them liberate one from the burden of
asking the question of ultimate truth.

But those of us who dare to face the question of truth may listen to what the Fourth Gospel
says about it. The first thing which strikes us is that the truth of which Jesus speaks is not a
doctrine but a reality, namely. He Himself: “I am the truth.” This is a profound transformation
of the ordinary meaning of truth. For us, statements are true or false; people may have truth or
not; but how can they be truth, even the truth? The truth of which the Fourth Gospel speaks is
a true reality — that reality which does not deceive us if we accept it and live with it. If Jesus
says, “I am the truth,” he indicates that in Him the true, the genuine, the ultimate reality is
present; or, in other words, that God is present, unveiled, undistorted, in His infinite depth, in
His unapproachable mystery. Jesus is not the truth because His teachings are true. But His
teachings are true because they express the truth which He Himself is. He is more than His
words. And He is more than any word said about Him.

The truth which makes us free is neither the teaching of Jesus nor the teaching about Jesus.
Those who have called the teaching of Jesus “the truth” have subjected the people to a
servitude under the law. And most people like to live under a law. They want to be told what
to think and what not to think. And they accept Jesus as the infallible teacher and giver of a
new law. But even the words of Jesus, if taken as a law, are not the truth which makes us free.
And they should not be used as such by our scholars and preachers and religious teachers.
They should not be used as a collection of infallible prescriptions for life and thought. They
point to the truth, but they are not a law of truth. Nor are the doctrines about Him the truth
that liberates. I say this to you as somebody who all his life has worked for a true expression
of the truth which is the Christ. But the more one works, the more one realizes that our
expressions, including everything we have learned from our teachers and from the teaching of
the Church in all generations, is not the truth that makes us free.

The Church very early forgot the word of our Gospel that He is the truth; and claimed that her
doctrines about Him are the truth. But these doctrines, however necessary and good they
were, proved to be not the truth that liberates. Soon they became tools of suppression, of
servitude under authorities; they became means to prevent the honest search for truth —
weapons to split the souls of people between loyalty to the Church and sincerity to truth. And
in this way they gave deadly weapons to those who attacked the Church and its doctrines in
the name of truth. Not everybody feels this conflict. There are masses of people who feel safe
under doctrinal laws. They are safe, but it is the safety of him who has not yet found his
spiritual freedom, who has not yet found his true self It is the dignity and the danger of
Protestantism that it exposes its adherents to the insecurity of asking the question of truth for
themselves and that it throws them into the freedom and responsibility of personal decisions,
of the right to choose between the ways of the sceptics, and those who are orthodox, of the
indifferent masses, and Him who is the truth that liberates. For this is the greatness of
Protestantism: that it points beyond the teachings of Jesus and beyond the doctrines of the
Church to the being of Him whose being is the truth.

How do we reach this truth? “By doing it,” is the answer of the Fourth Gospel. This does not
mean being obedient to the commandments, accepting them and fulfilling them. Doing the
truth means living out of the reality which is He who is the truth, making His being the being
of ourselves and of our world. And again, we ask, “How can this happen?” “By remaining in
Him” is the answer of the Fourth Gospel, i.e., by participating in His being. “Abide in me and

I in you,” he says. The tmth which hberates is the tmth in which we participate, which is a
part of us and we a part of it. True discipleship is participation. If the real, the ultimate, the
divine reality which is His being becomes our being we are in the truth that matters.

And a third time we ask. “How can this happen?” There is an answer to this question in our
Gospel which may deeply shock us: “Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.” Being
“of the truth” means, coming from the true, the ultimate reality, being determined in one’s
being by the divine ground of all being, by that reality which is present in the Christ. If we
have part in it, we recognize it wherever it appears; we recognize it as it appears in its fullness
in the Christ. But, some may ask in despair: “If we have no part in it, if we are not of the truth,
are we then forever excluded from it? Must we accept a life without truth, a life in error and
meaninglessness? Who tells me that / am of the truth, that / have a chance to reach it?”
Nobody can tell you; but there is one criterion: If you seriously ask the question, “Am I of the
truth?” you are of the truth. If you do not ask it seriously, you do not really want, and you do
not deserve, and you cannot get, an answer! He who asks seriously the question of the truth
that liberates, is already on his way to liberation. He may still be in the bondage of dogmatic
self-assurance but he has begun to be free from it. He may still be in the bondage of cynical
despair, but he has already started to emerge from it. He may still be in the bondage of
unconcern about the truth that matters, but his unconcern is already shaken. These all are of
the truth and on their road to the truth.

On this road you will meet the liberating truth in many forms except in one form: you never
will meet it in the form of propositions which you can learn or write down and take home. But
you may encounter it in one sentence of a book or of a conversation or of a lecture, or even of
a sermon. This sentence is not the truth, but it may open you up for the truth and it may
liberate you from the bondage to opinions and prejudices and conventions. Suddenly, true
reality appears like the brightness of lightening in a formerly dark place. Or, slowly, true
reality appears like a landscape when the fog becomes thinner and thinner and finally
disappears. New darknesses, new fogs will fall upon you; but you have experienced, at least
once, the truth and the freedom given by the truth. Or you may be grasped by the truth in an
encounter with a piece of nature — its beauty and its transitoriness; or in an encounter with a
human being in friendship and estrangement, in love, in difference and hate; or in an
encounter with yourself in a sudden insight into the hidden strivings of your soul, in disgust
and even hatred of yourself, in reconciliation with and acceptance of yourself In these
encounters you may meet the true reality — the truth which liberates from illusions and false
authorities, from enslaving anxieties, desires and hostilities, from a wrong self-rejection and a
wrong self-affirmation.

And it may even happen that you are grasped by the picture and power of Him who is truth.
There is no law that this must happen. Many at all times and in all places have encountered
the true reality which is in Him without knowing His name — as He Himself said. They were
of the truth and they recognized the truth, although they had never seen Him who is the truth.
And those who have seen Him, the Christians in all generations, have no guarantee that they
participate in the truth which He is. Maybe they were not of the truth. Those, however, who
are of the truth and who have encountered Him who is the truth have one precious thing
beyond the others: They have the point from which to judge all truth they encounter
anywhere. They look at life which never lost the communion with the divine ground of all
life, and they look at a life which never lost the union of love with all beings.

And this leads to the last word which the man who has written the Gospel and the Letters of
John has to say about truth: that the truth that liberates is the power of love, for God is love.
The father of the lie binds us to himself by binding us to ourselves — or to the that in us which
is not our true self Love liberates from the father of the lie because it liberates us from our
false self to our true self — to that self which is grounded in true reality. Therefore, distrust
every claim for truth where you do not see truth united with love; and be certain that you are
of the truth and that the truth has taken hold of you only when love has taken hold of you and
has started to make you free from yourselves.

Comrade,

I could post it again formatted?

i wonder if one could be doctrinally conservative while being politically liberal.

1000 times yes.

There’s a blog where I hang out, that I want to tell you about. Christian could give you some of the deets.

What else do you want to know, Greg? Name, rank, and serial number 😉

Is torture moral and right?

If you lied to the magistrate, would it be just to imprison you and torture you every day for the rest of your life?

And are you, being a Christian, going to enjoy heaven (a place supposedly without tears and sorrow) knowing as you do that your friends and family are suffering forever and ever, without end, without mercy, without hope, without respite? How is that going to work exactly? Will you stop loving them? That seems doubtful. Will God mind wipe you so you don’t remember them? Wouldn’t that entail a violation of your free will? Will God make you so holy that you are okay with the eternal suffering of others? Wouldn’t that make you a monster?

Hell cannot exist if heaven does.

The only way out would be to say that heaven and hell are the same place, it is simply the heart of the person that determines which they experience. And even then, I cannot conceive that God or you and I would be happy knowing that our brothers are in constant misery.

Christian,

If you’re going to define hell as eternal suffering and torment, then you have philosophical problems, such as how could a just and good “God” create a system in which billions and billions of people will suffer for all eternity in punishment for a very short life lived with a sin nature that we inherited

So a truly good God would have created a system or world “better” than this world. One with less suffering, more love, and no people in hell. But Christian, you are just not in the position to make that call. Who is to say that there even is a better possible world with creaturely freedom? Or that God does not have a moral reason to permit such a tragedy in light of some greater good? With our limited scope and knowledge it might seem like He could have no morally justifiable reason for allowing people to suffer hell, but i woukd say that we are just not in a position to know that.

Biblically you have problems such as many verses that make it seem as if the wicked are destroyed, not tormented forever and ever, but I’ve been over that a bunch of times and better people than me have written books on it. I realize different interpretations than the official position of the Catholic church are considered invalid, so there’s probably not much to discuss here

Haha yeah I’ll just pull out the infallible Church card. Boom. No more bible problems. Easy.

Back to your analogy, anyone aware of the fire isn’t going to be jumping because the fireman loves them. I just don’t buy that. Hell, if it’s an eternal torture chamber, is bad enough that anyone with any intelligence is not going to be able to think about much else.

Maybe. I don’t know. I think that if my son was trapped in a building that he knew would otherwise kill him… and if he also knew that daddy would save him if he just listened to my call…. would jump both because he loved me AND because he had no desire to be roasted.

But maybe I’m giving my three year old to much credit 🙂

Christian,

Sorry, I don’t think I was very clear in my last comment. I’m trying not to use any of my big nerdy theology words and it’s tripping me up lol

OK try again. What I mean to say is that God contains knowledge that we do not. He sees the entire picture in a way we could never see it. So, for example, you would agree with me that blowing a man’s brains out with a shotgun is a more evil. However, suppose that you knew this man was only moments away from setting off a nuclear warhead. You would then have morally acceptable reasons for blowing this man’s brains out with a shotgun that other people may not be privy to. What I’m saying is that God has this kind of information in a way that we could not even comprehend. So even though to you, there may not seem to be any morally acceptable reason for God to permit people to descend into hell, there very well may be one once you consider the whole picture.

In this way our sense of justice that God gave us would not be violated. You may still be incredulous that there could be such a reason… but being incredulous isn’t an argument. It’s just a state of mind

If torture is immoral, then there is no good reason that would justify the eternal torture of people. And I cannot intellectually believe that God who supposedly loves us so much that he would die to share his life with us, that God who is called a good and perfect Father, is the sort of monster that would tell a prodigal son, “Sorry, kid, your mass murdering brother took me up on the limited time offer of forgiveness, so I’m throwing him a party with a fatted calf and his friends, but you didn’t ask forgiveness soon enough and died an agnostic, so I’m going to have my men take you down the basement and torture you. Try not to scream loudly enough to bother the party guests.”

And I cannot believe that I am a better father than God. I punish my children for their offenses, but the goal is always correction and improvement, not vengeance and suffering.

Comrade,

When you said “tl;dr” you were referring to my tillich quote, not the part where i said to Greg:

As for the quote, it’s from the Bible. I like the Bible, ya know. Have you read it?

At least that’s what I gathered. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Toodles.

Yeah, Andrew,

Your assumption is correct.

I have read the bible. It’s the reason I’ve moved from being a fundamentalist to being a theologically (and politically) liberal Christian Universalist. There are too many problems with the book and too many problems that arise if you think about the book for me to maintain my former beliefs.

Andrew –

Finished ep 29 last night and I don’t think there’s much in there that has made me deviate my thinking all that much. And thanks for the kind words but I don’t actually have any beliefs to defend in this whole christianity thing. It’s just a fascinating subject to me (academically) and that same level of interest has frustrated pretty much all of my christian friends because it defines who they are.

Issue of Superbowl, Sherman has turned some folks off of Seahawks (me too – but I hate the Pat’s more), also many of my issues with the Seahawks come from back when you were in the AFC West.
Also Brady isn’t the only QB with 4 rings, Montana has 4 as well.