All the Atheist-Christian Ecumenical Dialogue that's Fit to Print

EJ:
All dictonaries use the word "omnipotent" to describe God. Omnipotence is supernatural (i.e not natural).

SR:
Fascinating that you should think so, since I’ve just cited both Oxford and Cambridge, and neither of them use the term. Your beliefs do seem to be unrelated to either logic or evidence.

EJ:
The list you gave of those who believed Jesus was the son of God came from tendentious scribes 100s of years after the crucifixion (I'm referring to when the bible was codified, I.e when events were embellished, invented or deleted, etc.) See Eusebius, Emperor Constantine's spin doctor, for example.

SR:
The books of the New Testament were probably all completed by 125 AD. We have a partial manuscript of John’s Gospel from that time, and there are reasons to believe John’s was the last gospel to be written. Mark, for example, seems to know nothing of the destruction of Jerusalem, which means that gospel almost certainly arrived at its present form before 79 AD. However, the books of the NT were not officially accepted as canonical until 393 AD.

You may well protest the weakness of our sources. But it is quite unrealistic to expect we would have anything better regarding the status of a given idea between 30 and 60 AD.

EJ:
I might have misspoke re the Arians. However, my point remains valid: the status of Jesus Christ was vociferously debated before the bible was codified.

SR:
Your claim was that the early Christians thought of Jesus as man, not God. Nobody seems to have twigged to this possibility.

EJ:
What are you talking about "religion is way ahead of me" when I said there was no heaven or hell, that eternal existence was a birthright to every living thing? Most Christians believe heaven and hell are real.

SR:
No, what you said was “Imagine when people realize death is not the end of existence regardless if they believe in a god or not.”

It seems I take better heed of what you write than you do. Should I?


EJ:
Re the soul: something that is nowhere does not exist. I say some "thing," not an idea or concept. The soul is a thing, something that floats around (supposedly).

SR:
Whoah! Several weirdnesses here. Souls do not “float around”: you are perhaps thinking of clouds or chicken feathers. To say that something that is nowhere does not exist is to arbitrarily define only physical things as existing. The distinction between a “thing” and an idea or concept is also unique to you: what do you suppose it can mean, then, when we say “He always says the first thing that comes into his head”?

If you insist that only physical things can be “things,” then your problem is probably very simply solved by understanding that, by this arbitrary definition, a soul is not a “thing.”


EJ:
Those who recover abilities after a brain injury are using other neurons to replace those that are damaged. No soul reqired.

SR:
If it isn’t the soul using those other neurons, who or what is doing it?

EJ:
Re JP2: You're being obstinate re the Pope's apology. The title of the article is, "Roman Catholics seeking forgiveness for 2000 years of sin and weakness," Reuters and AFP, Vatican City. The article quotes the Pope directly. You seem to think you know more than Reuters.

SR:
When I saw your title, above, I thought the problem might be that you had been referring all along not to the Church’s statement on the Holocaust, which came out in 1998, but to the Church’s call for reconciliation on the eve of the Millennium, a more general document, in 2000. After all, the Holocaust did not last 2,000 years.

But still no.

Here is the part of that latter statement that refers to the Jews:

IV. CONFESSION OF SINS AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL

A representative of the Roman Curia:
Let us pray that, in recalling the sufferings
endured by the people of Israel throughout history,
Christians will acknowledge the sins
committed by not a few of their number
against the people of the Covenant and the blessings,
and in this way will purify their hearts.

Silent prayer.

The Holy Father:
God of our fathers,
you chose Abraham and his descendants
to bring your Name to the Nations:
we are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those
who in the course of history
have caused these children of yours to suffer,
and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves
to genuine brotherhood
with the people of the Covenant.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

R. Amen

The holocaust itself is not even mentioned. And “His exact words were ‘the Christian's lack of discernmet [sic]’"? Still no.

There is yet a third document, also issued on the eve of the Millennium, covering roughly the same subjects: “Memory and Reconciliation: the Church and the Faults of the Past.” A search of this document also turns up a blank for “lack” and “discernment.”

Here is the passage on the Holocaust:

The Shoah was certainly the result of the pagan ideology that was Nazism, animated by a merciless anti-Semitism that not only despised the faith of the Jewish people, but also denied their very human dignity. Nevertheless, “it may be asked whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made easier by the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some Christian minds and hearts... Did Christians give every possible assistance to those being persecuted, and in particular to the persecuted Jews?”(85) There is no doubt that there were many Christians who risked their lives to save and to help their Jewish neighbors. It seems, however, also true that “alongside such courageous men and women, the spiritual resistance and concrete action of other Christians was not that which might have been expected from Christ’s followers.”(86) This fact constitutes a call to the consciences of all Christians today, so as to require “an act of repentance (teshuva),” (87) and to be a stimulus to increase efforts to be “transformed by renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2), as well as to keep a “moral and religious memory” of the injury inflicted on the Jews. In this area, much has already been done, but this should be confirmed and deepened.

Still no.

Your guess, having the Globe piece, is better than mine on where the Globe might have come up with its claims.

EJ:
What fired me up was his article that essentially said Christianity was superior to Islam.

SR:
Of course! With considerable respect towards Islam, I believe the same. Duh! It is why I’m a Christian and not a Muslim.

EJ:
I checkmated him when I proved all war is an example of group insanity.

SR:
Excellent non sequitor.

EJ:
Re children frightened by bogeymen, not adults. First, I think most adults are afraid of hell (those who believe it's a real place). Second, I agree, children are more susceptible to fear. This is why it's an egregreous abuse of power to brainwash them from the time they are born.

SR:
You forget, “brainwashing” is just a bogeyman. No such thing. No reason to fear it.

EJ:
Sounds to me you didn't take the Da Vinci Code seriously enough. YOU THINK MARY WAS A WHORE/! Man, are you in need of enlightenment.

SR:
Just checking, Jeff; it sounds almost as if you are suddenly confusing Mary Magdalene with the Virgin Mary.

If not, and you really find it unspeakably unenlightened to believe that some woman in the ancient world could have been a prostitute--do you extend the same blind faith to modern women?

I’m afraid that’s a touch naïve, Jeff.

EJ:
It was the 6th century when Pope Gregory degraded the only female disciple to a prostitute.

SR:
Jeff, you have never read the New Testament if you think Magdalene was Jesus’s only female disciple.

EJ:
Your own Catholic institution renounced the claim in 1969.

SR:
What happened in 1969 was a reform of the ecclesial calendar. As one element of that reform, the reading prescribed for Magdalene’s feast day was changed from that about the sinful woman who put oil on Jesus’s feet to that about Magdalene’s discovery of the resurrection.

This makes obvious sense. First, we cannot be sure that the first reading actually refers to Mary Magdalene, since she is not named. Second, the event of the resurrection was more important for salvation history.

But that’s it. To interpret that as “the Catholic Church renounces the claim that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute” is pure fantasy.

I don’t doubt that some news media may even have presented it this way; I remember at the time similarly silly news stories claiming the Church no longer recognized St. Christopher.

The moral here, Jeff, is that some people hate the Catholic Church enough that they will spread lies and misrepresentations if they think they can harm it by doing so.
This is good evidence that the Church is on the right path. If bad people hate you, that is a strong recommendation. “Blessed are you when they persecute you for my name’s sake.”

EJ:
Without a time machine we will never know the true relationship between Marry and Jesus. This is because Crusaders did such an excellent job burbing documants and murdering people who disagreed with thier dogma.

SR:
Man, I love conspiracy theories. And I suppose the absence of any documents showing Mary and Jesus were secret lovers is merely proof of how much was burned by the Crusaders?

I guess they also burned all the books recording that they burned the books. That’s obvious—any self-respecting conspiracy would have thought of that one.
So it must be true.

EJ:
However, enough is know to say with confidence that Marry was not a whore,

SR:
Good for you if you can really prove a negative. Please explain how you’ve done it.

…EJ:
No Steve, in an enlightened society NOBODY man nor woman, is someone else's property.

SR:
So you don’t see the marriage contract as binding? The part where we say “to have and to hold?” And when a lover says “I’m yours,” you see no meaning in that? I assure you, THEY do. If they are sincere in love.

EJ:
And the Commandment does not say, "A woman shall not covet thy neigbor's husband," because she has no rights to do so: it's the man who owns the property, not the woman.

SR:
Jeff, you’re getting really confused here. The whole point of the commandment is that you must NOT covet. Indeed, if there is any discrepancy in rights implied here, it is all to the advantage of the woman: presumably she can covet the husbands of others all she wants. It is up to the man to behave himself.

EJ:
You think the delusion of Santa and the insanity of Christmas is good for children? Just like the delusion of a god is good for adults, right?

Consider this: two children are well behaved, one because he wants lots of presents from Santa, the other because he simply thinks it's the right way to be.

Which child is more moral? Now apply the same principle to those who believe in a god.

SR:
This is an excellent question, Jeff; one many ponder. Put another way, isn’t it better to do good just because it is good, not for some fear of hell?

Sure it is; but, based on this insight, would you find it wise never to punish your child? After all, if he does what he should only because he is punished for it, is that real morality? And how can we contemplate having prisons? What’s the value of forcing people to do right, if their hearts are not in it?

So there is the obvious practical argument: whatever the effect on the bad child or bad adult, there is something to be said, morally, for protecting the victims from their possible actions.

But there is more. Justice is a good, and so just punishment is a moral good. Indeed, a truly moral person, one who “hungers and thirsts after righteousness,” should actually be horrified at the possibility of getting away without punishment for their sins. So heaven and hell are inevitable, in a just universe.

EJ:
Now consider this: enough money is wasted at Christmas on wrapping paper alone, to feed millions of starving children. Then there's the gluttony. North Americans are killing themselves by stuffing too much food in their faces: at Christmas time what do they typically do? Eat until they pass out! From a humanistic perspective, the Christian brainwashing of Christmas is inhumane on many levels.

SR:
Jeff, my wife is from the Philippines, and I have spent a lot of time there. The Philippines is a pretty poor country, but you know what keeps them going? Fiestas. All of Philippines life is organized around the fiestas. The same could be said of most poor countries: India, Latin America, and so on. You can almost see a one-to-one relationship: the biggest parties are in the poorest places. New Orleans, for the US; Rio de Janeiro; the huge gatherings at Varanasi in India.

It may not mean that much to those of us who are rich to have a day of pure gluttony, rest, and celebration every once in a while, but it means a whole lot to those who, most days, are barely getting by.

The money is not wasted. Man does not live by bread alone.

You send more money to the poorer countries, and you want to bet they’re going to spend a lot of it on fiestas. They know their needs.

I would agree that we who are, in world terms, rich, need fewer and smaller parties than the poor. That seems to happen quite naturally. Our Canadian Christmases are not as elaborate as they were a few generations ago. In Shakespeare’s time, an English Christmas went on for twelve days.