real or not?

So let's begin with the New Testament: I have problems with the accuracy of the bulk of the latter part of this collection of books, however the earlier writings such as Paul's letters and to a lesser extent, the gospel of Mark, I believe are sincere. This is because they (Paul in particular) were writing about Jesus the person. The latter books tend to use Jesus as justification for the early church’s doings by stretching and in fact inventing many of His stories to suit their needs.

But while I'm here, to dispel the argument that Jesus was not an historical person, I tell you; if they were to create a myth, the early writers of the Gospels would not have had Jesus come from Nazareth, a place they despised—with doctrine stating ‘nothing good could ever come out of Nazareth’. And further, their message surely spells history as there is no other explanation for the writers to create a story so unheard of in their time, a story they would need to bend and twist to fit into the framework of their pre-modern ways for decades. If you were looking for something that isn’t historical, start at the stories invented later to try and rectify what didn’t sit well with early Christian prejudices—Jesus was born in Bethlehem, during a census and in a stable—now that may be a lot of things, but it’s certainly not history.

And the resurrection story—which is the crux of the Christian message. What gives it merit is not whether Jesus was crucified or raised from the dead, it is in the transformation that occurred within the disciples shortly afterwards—they had forsaken Jesus in fear and abandoned him in cowardice but suddenly became fearless, heroic people ready to die for the truth which now possessed them, becoming the most influential movement the world has ever known—no vision or hallucination I believe is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation.

Perhaps they saw the love of God incarnate within him… he was betrayed, denied, persecuted, forsaken, tortured and killed yet he still loved the perpetrators. That’s why I believe God is in Christ—I don’t see it possible in any human to have this much capacity to love. I find in this Jesus a life fully lived and a love wastefully given.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg––or else he would be the Devil. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.  - C. S. Lewis

kernel of truth

So if we then head back to when each religion was in its infancy, you find a common thread they all share, that of compassion, wisdom and being. Interestingly, if you dig deeper, you’ll also discover the same common thread in philosophy—Plato in my opinion was not all that revolutionary, he was just the first recorded person to tap into this primordial need, thereby giving an alternative to the faith based religions and arguing the same fundamental truth but through logical rationale. Anyway, this common thread I speak of, although eternal, expresses itself in the time it was written and through the mind of man; therefore every scripture must necessarily contain two elements, one temporary, perishable, belonging to the ideas of the period and country in which it was produced, with the other eternal and imperishable and applicable in all ages and countries. Each also has undergone 2000 years of humanity and therefore added 2000 years of self serving dogma to this ‘common thread’. So to find fulfillment now, we need to peel back the layers, right back to the kernel of the message and remember what kindled this belief process in the first place.

My personal opinion is that a shortcut lies in the Buddhist faith which has no hierarchy and therefore no power struggles which results in fewer layers to wade through.

But my emphasis here however, will be through the Christian coloured pane of that multi-coloured lantern, as it is from within this Christian tradition on which I was raised.

So with my next entry, I'll use broad brush strokes for my take on the ancient faith of Christianity which broke upon the scene in Judea in the first century and then moved on to conquer the Roman empire in the fourth century, dominate Western civilisation in the thirteenth century, endure the face-lifting reformation of the sixteenth century, follow the flag of European colonial expansion in the nineteenth century, and shrink dramatically in the twentieth century.

I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.

- Mahatma Gandhi

the highest source (well second ;)

If the previous blog were to be accepted as profound, it would need to be opened up to academics and philosophers alike. I sent this to the most authoritative source I know—John Shelby Spong, and received this reply:

Dear Mark:
Thanks for your letter. Your argument is as good as any. It is not new. It responds to the question why is there something and not nothing.
In the last analysis whether there is God or not doesn't really matter. The real question is: does this God relate to me?
My best,
John S. Spong

The latter part of this reply alludes to what Bonhoeffer recognised (where so many religious people fail to) that anything we say about God is subjective. We cannot capture and fully embrace God. Our words point to and our images interact with God, but our words and our images are products of our world and our cultural realities. They are not objective and they will not endure forever. So therefore we must ask ourselves ‘who is God for us today?’ and ‘how does this God relate to me personally’. The former part of his reply however adds a certain amount of validity to my statement and subsequently gives further strength to my conviction.

So even though I believe all religion to be ultimately man-made, I treat God as axiom and Jesus as simply one of the many doorways to that God—like a candle inside a multicoloured lantern, everyone looks through a particular colour, but the candle is always there. Ultimately, we must learn that in respect to the different religions out there, it is not by which road we travel, but how we conduct ourselves on the road we choose to take that is crucial. To suggest otherwise is to continue to play outdated religious games.

My mind is my own church.  -  Thomas Paine

that was then..

One night close to a decade later, I had a thought process which married cosmology and transcendence into a statement which was so simplistic that it may have some element of truth:

Either (via the big bang) the universe came into existence out of nothing, with matter and energy being created out of emptiness and for no reason. 

or 

A power we cannot yet comprehend set the big bang and the universe into motion by divine intervention and for a purpose we are not yet privy to.

Although the later is difficult to humanly comprehend, the former is simply impossible!

So as scientists can never explain what happened before the big bang, it seems rational to think that something irrational is out there and I guess all the different religions are trying to fill in that hole.

Maybe the human mind is not capable of understanding universal truths? -  Anon

the gospel according to not that Mark but this one

sooooo....... like many, in my late teens, I grappled long and hard as to the existence of God, believing it to be  the most important question you have to answer in your lifetime—since your eternity depends on the answer. I figured at the time that as medical advances continue to a point where each person may be able to be kept alive forever, the question may ultimately become a choice between immortality and God.

The more I read and pondered the likelihood of such a God, the more I was convinced of It’s presence. I had resigned myself to the fact that for those who do believe, no explanation is necessary while for those who do not, no explanation is possible. To recall Alan Watts; ‘defining God is like trying to wrap up the wind in apackage and post it’. Anyhow, if I were able to give you total proof of the existence of God, would we not all be believers?

 Dietrich Bonhoeffer says “A God who let us prove his existence would be only an idol”. We therefore need a certain amount of that faith element. And besides, if there were no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?

Your God is too small. - J B Phillips

Intentions

My intention is to write in a simple manner wherever possible in this blog, but I fear I may fail a little. My shortcomings in expressing myself will be due partly to the complex subject matter and partly (probably mostly) by my inability to articulate myself on certain points. To clear up or indeed expand on many of the issues I raise, you could do a lot worse than to read some of “John Shelby Spong’s” work (you can find them online here).


Bishop Spong is widely recognised in this field and is the inspiration for many of my own thoughts. In fact I challenge anyone to read his work and find fault with it. His arguments are researched comprehensibly, analysed critically and explained so beautifully that one could say it's almost divinely inspired.

So if you are at all familiar with his work, you will see the irony of that last statement and of course I say it with my tongue placed firmly in my cheek. His secret however, lies in the fact that the only agenda he has is that of the truth, that's what he doggedly followed as it led the direction of his journey and with the truth in his arsenal, he had the most powerful backing on which to base his claims and take on the church and its prehistoric notions.

Contrary to first impressions of his work, his message is in fact complimentary to that of the church's and it's only the truth (plus pair of mighty big stones) which has saved him the fate of being slayed as a heretic. Had he arrived on the scene 20 years earlier, he most probably would have suffered the same fate which fell on many of his vocal predecessors.

Alright, so time to strap yourself in, I plan to go deep. There's just no other way to tackle religion. I intend to go in boots and all and take no prisoners. Commit yourself to either reading this properly or skip through to my other blog because this one will need your full attention.

Now my thoughts on this subject continually change....no, they progress. With the only thing static being that the ideas remain dynamic. So I could only ever see this part as a snapshot of my thoughts in time. For them to become set in stone would make them dogmatic in nature—and as you will see, I hate dogma!!

Please also remember as you read the following that these are my personal beliefs and I don’t pretend them to be a definitive account of religion in any way.

The call of Christ for me is an eternal call to love, to live, and to be  -  John Shelby Spong

so lets now have a look at the gospel according to not that Mark but this one..