A few months ago I had a conversion experience: I went from being ambiguously anti-religious to an out-and-out atheist. I haven't felt the need to go into the details (in the spirit of living-and-letting-live), but I've been asked about it by a few people. Their inquiries, along with events in the news (notably the murder of George Tiller) have outed me, as it were and compelled me to tell the tale.
This essay was originally going to be a single entry, but after composing a heavily abridged draft I still had a piece that was uncomfortably long. I've broken it up and expanded some bits and added other bits and I will be posting it all this week (I'll also be updating links throughout the week as well) in an event that I have irreverently dubbed "Blasphemy Week". In spite of the titular levity, the general tone will remain serious and I must implore you not to think of any of this as a personal attack. My wife is a non-Christian theist, my mother is a practicing Christian, and I have several friends (and readers) of various levels of devotion, and there will likely be something in here to offend all of you. I apologize in advance.
Here is the itinerary: Part II will be an overview of my upbringing in as a Christian. Part III will detail the events that caused me to first seriously question my faith. Part IV will be a discussion of the quirks of the Church and the Bible. Part V will go into the nature of God and my quest for spiritual fulfillment. Part VI will attempt to answer the question "what's wrong with believing?". Part VII will be a discussion of agnosticism.
Since the rest of the week will be about the road to here, I would like to set aside a few paragraphs in Part I to actually talk about where "here" is. This, then, is what I believe:
I believe that around the middle of the first century, CE, Saul of Tarsus, later known as the Apostle Paul, founded a mystery cult around a fictitious person named Jesus whom he described as a son of god and divine intercessor (standard stuff for 1st century mystery cults). This cult grew in popularity and split into many sects. One sect grew by synthesizing itself with other mystical traditions (most notably Judaism) to form a seemingly ancient religion, and that this became the early Christian church. The church became a political entity during the decline of the Roman Empire and was finally codified in the 4th century, paving the way for it to became one of the dominant institutions of the Western world.
Taking a step back from Christianity, I am convinced that there is no god and that anything we attribute to a god or gods is better explained by science. I think that our tendency towards belief in god is an unfortunate byproduct of our cognitive development: notably our ability to understand that the future exists and is uncertain combined with an inability to accept the uncertainty of the future, as well as our fear of dying. I believe that faith is the enemy of reason, and that religion and spirituality ultimately poison society.
To find out why, keep reading.
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Google Apps highlights – 7/30/2010
1 day ago
5 comments:
You Said: "I believe that around the middle of the first century, CE, Saul of Tarsus, later known as the Apostle Paul, founded a mystery cult around a fictitious person named Jesus whom he described as a son of god and divine intercessor (standard stuff for 1st century mystery cults)."
This sentence is all I need to read to know that you don't know what you're talking about.
Let me break it down:
"I believe" -- Not a statement of any kind of fact, just what you think happened. Of course, it's good you used this statement, because none of the rest of the sentence has any basis in fact. It's another statement leading me to feel that being an atheist takes more faith than any religion expects.
"(the) Apostle Paul founded a mystery cult" -- Ummm.. actually Christianity was founded by Peter, not Paul. Saul of Tarsus persecuted Christians and was struck blind on the road to Damascus, and Jesus later appeared to him and removed his blindness, and then he became Paul. He then became what he had persecuted. He didn't start Christianity, he persecuted it.
"a fictitious person named Jesus" -- So Census information, and other historical (non-biblical) records of Jesus of Nazareth don't mean anything? The man existed. Whether you consider him the son of God, or just a really nice, magical guy who did a lot of good things for sick people, he existed, and he did heal people.
and finally:
"Mystery cult" -- Uh... what's so "mysterious" about it? If anything, it's a Messianic Cult. The sort of thing that the Jewish people have been looking for from the time their religion began. It's not like some people waiting on a spaceship behind a comet that they have to kill themselves to board. It's a progression from Judaism that is prophesied throughout the Torah.
@KitAdrian
I'm touched that you are moved to action by my writing; you might do well to learn that "you don't know what you're talking about" is perhaps not the most intelligent way to begin a rebuttal.
"I believe"... we don't actually know very much about that time. All history is subject to interpretation.
"Apostle Paul"... Again, we don't know a great deal about what happened. According to tradition, Peter started the church, but that same tradition attributed the gospels to the Apostles that "wrote" them (the gospels make no such claim), and this attribution has been largely dismissed by scholars.
"Fictitious"... Jesus was a pretty common name, actually. "Jesus" is the Greek-ified version that has been passed down through the church. The Hebrew version, "Ieshue" (appr), also persisted and has been Anglicized to "Joshua". So yes, there was a Jesus of Nazareth--there were probably quite a few Jesuses in Nazareth. There are no verifiable records that point to the existence of a healer by that name. There are lots of redactions however, and, not to beat a dead horse, but this was a pre-literate society so there's a great deal we don't know about it. For a more thorough argument against the existence of a historical Jesus, go here.
"Mystery Cults"... Find information here. Not a term that I made up. As for Christianity being a fulfillment of the Torah, first of all, I think you actually mean "Tanakh" (the Torah is only the first five books--not much prophecy in them). More to the point, as you'll no doubt read in Part IV, much of that connection was made up by New Testament authors. There were many, many sects of Christianity early on, many of which had nothing to do with Judaism. Here's an excellent book on the subject.
Comet...Ah, pop cultural references. How cute. Mind linking a few sources next time?
Anyway, I won't keep you; I trust you have a whole Internet of freethinkers to insult.
Here are a few poorly organized thoughts that somewhat contribute to this conversation...
1.The early christian church (as far as I know) lacked an initiation into a mystery, as would have been found in a greek mystery cult. Many of the non-canonical gospels and writings were, however, gnostic.
2.Paul is commonly called the founder of christianity because he wrote most of the new testament. The religion probably existed before he started writing, as he mentions in his writings that there are other teachers of christianity who had already visited the groups he was writing, and that he did not want to cause problems by offering conflicting teachings (Paul was a fairly liberal guy if you really look at his writings).
3.The tradition of the gospels having been written by the apostles most likely comes from the Greek tradition of students writing under their masters names (look at Plato).
This is about as usefull as my degree in Greek/Classics gets...
I'm pretty sure KitAdrian has a point in the Paul thing. (I know, I'm way late on this, but that's what you get for writing this stuff while I'm out of the country).
Your theory would have to assume then, that when Paul told people the story of Jesus and how he persecuted Christians, that they believed him no-questioned-asked, even though nobody on earth had ever been witness to or even heard of this man before, even in the cities where he lived and traveled. Today, it's harder to trace exact history during that time period, but it would have been a lot easier in the first century, when people who would know were still alive.
@Walter - I think being dunked under water and consuming the metaphorical blood and flesh of the son of God probably counted as initiation rituals :)
@Amy Yeah, sorry, it's not like I was avoiding you or anything, though. Thanks for pointing out the baptism ritual to Walter, I kept meaning to mention that and then getting sidetracked.
The broader point is that we don't actually know very much about what went on in 1st Century Jewish Palestine. The argument for a Pauline origin for the church comes from Earl Doherty, and it is a divergent view from the norm--most biblical scholars believe that Jesus did exist, but they also tend to think that about half of the epistles were written by someone other than Paul.
I happen to agree with Doherty, but who knows? As I read more my views may change. That said, belief versus disbelief in a historical personage of Jesus is irrelevant to my overall thesis. If I were to concede that he did exist, I certainly wouldn't believe that he was the Son of God.
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