Sunday, December 03, 2006

Green v. AG - Round IV [part ii]: Counterpoint

From: American Guy
To: Green
Subject: RE: finally! My response.
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003

I'm afraid I can no longer debate you on this topic. You've obviously long ago made up your mind and aren't interested in hearing any other view than your own. Frankly, you're beginning to sound like a religious fanatic, and that disturbs me. Please continue to argue for what you believe in (I'd expect no less), but this long email sounds like something a street preacher standing on a milk crate might come out with.

I will comment on just a couple of points you made though.

1. Evolution is not called a 'theory' by any serious scientists. The only people who still refer to it as such are those that have a vested interest in 'proving' that it's false, or else those that are forced to for political reasons. The Mississippi state school system requires its science teachers to discuss evolution as one possible explanation and creationism as another.

This makes a mockery out of both science and education, but the political reality of it is that, just like in most of the Bible belt, the Christian community is an extremely powerful entity which has been allowed to foist its world view on all others.

2. Citing long dictionary definitions, quoting texts of dubious origin (i.e. the one you quote by Marshall and Sandra Hall who are obviously making a very one-sided argument) or putting words like "It's a HISTORICAL FACT" in capital letters do nothing to add to your argument. In fact, they make you sound desperate. You say it's a HISTORICAL FACT that Jesus rose from the dead. Saying so doesn't make it true. If I were to pepper this email with statements like "It's a HISTORICAL FACT that blue is red" or "It's a HISTORICAL FACT that I am obviously right and you are obviously wrong" it wouldn't do anything to persuade you, would it?

3. Here's an old favourite of mine - your claim that Christianity is the one true religion and all others are false. So tell me, if heaven is real, are there no hindus there? What about all those that lived and died before Christianity? Or, you have seem to have special affinity for the Jewish faith - are there no jews in heaven? Frankly, a heaven without Sammy Davis Junior doesn't sound like heaven to me.

There's an old joke about a man who dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter is giving him the grand tour. "This is where the Methodists live. This is where the Buddhists live" etc. It's all very beautiful to see the people of different faiths all in paradise together. Suddenly they come up to a giant walled-in enclosure with no way to see out or in. The man asks St Peter what it is. "Oh that, that's where the Catholics live, they think they're the only ones here."

Is your God so petty that he would only allow people who follow one particular belief in? Even those who have lived faithfully to their own religious (or moral) tenets? All kidding aside, if your God would be that petty, He doesn't sound like an all powerful, all knowing being to me. And if He did let the others in, then your argument that 'Christ is the one true path' doesn't hold up. In short, if it turns out I'm wrong about the whole afterlife thing (but of course I know deep down that I'm not) then I don't see any sort of god punishing me for living my life true to myself.

4. Your argument about there being no tomb with Jesus' body in it is rambling and doesn't really make a point. It's also factually wrong. You say that "You can visit the grave site of every single founder of every single religion the world has ever known, and that grave site will still be occupied!" Actually, just as a first example that comes to mind - Buddha ascended into Nirvana - his body is not in a tomb anywhere according to the doctrine. And there have been a lot of religions over the years - I'm sure some others of them have a belief that their founder ascended into the afterlife. You really can't presume to speak for 'every single religion the world has ever known', can you now?

5. You say "The Jewish people have considered Israel their homeland for roughly 4,000 years." Well, OK, but you also say that they originated in Egypt. Why isn't Egypt their homeland? People who make blind ascertations that Jews are God's chosen people tend to gloss over the more unpleasant aspects of their history. Frankly, the Jewish people have had their share of missteps like the rest of us. You even say that they conquered the people of Canaan. So, since the Canaanites weren't chosen, it was ok for the Jews to slaughter them? It's ok for them to murder Palestinian children because of their disputed shared homeland? If you follow this logic to the extreme, it's ok to fly planes into buildings if you believe you are doing God's will. Surely you don't argue that?

6. The Bible. It's obviously an important book, and yes, I have read great sections of it. I think it can serve a useful purpose as a guide to live one's life. However, even Christian theological scholars debate how much of it is history and how much is allegory. There's also the question of the writing process. As you state, it was written by several authors in a variety of languages over a long period of time. It's been translated countless times. As you know, whenever you translate a document, there can be inaccuracies. Over multiple translations, meanings can be shifted in subtle and not so subtle ways. Here's an example. I typed the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" into a translator. I translated it to Greek and then back to English. Here's what I got for a 'new' english version: "The fast brown fox jumps beyond the okniro' dog". No I don't know what the second to last word is, it appears to be a Greek word that doesn't translate. You see my point. This is just a simple phrase translated only twice and it has been changed in subtle and drastic ways. 'Beyond' is different than 'over', and Okniro' must be the Greek word (or some variant) for lazy. Now the bible is hundreds of pages long and has been translated countless times from the original. Think how many errors have popped up, even if only one word in 1000 was mistranslated. Don't like my argument? How about the fact that several Christian sects have their own translations, and they don't all agree with each other. You're all using the same source text, but you all read it differently.

7. Finally, you end with a quote from a scientist. I have never denied that some scientists also are religious. No less than Albert Einstein himself was a very a very religious individual. Though he was not Christian, so by your reasoning he is not in heaven. Some scientists believe in religion (of many faiths - Islam was for many centuries the cradle of science while the European Christians were locking Galileo in a dungeon for his 'blasphemy' that the earth goes around the sun) and some don't. Just as in the rest of society. That some scientists believe in god is no more proof of his existence than is the fact that some architects don't believe in god proof of his absence. Which brings up a good point - why are you trying to 'prove' the existence of God? By definition, Christianity is a faith. You can say that you believe. You can say that you have seen evidence, but you can never 'prove' that God exists.

Do I allow for the fact that I might not have all the answers, that I might be wrong on some points? Yes. I'm not sure that you do, though. You are sure in your faith (which takes a certain strength that I admire), but even the most devout should not turn their back on arguments against them, as I fear that you do. As I've said, there is no way to know for sure until we die. At that point, you either get to say "I told you so" and I'll admit defeat, or else we'll all just decompose into the earth and you'll never know that you were wrong. Until such a time, and since I'll never get to gloat if I turn out to be right, I have to go with my beliefs and my understanding of the universe.

AG

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