[Vision2020] Submission

[Chasuk]

On 6/20/06, Michael <metzler at moscow.com> wrote:

> Sharing Keely's premises, I'm content exploring this new argument against
> Christianity.  This is kind of like a suped up, more focused Problem of Evil
> argument, and I invite our fellow atheists to the discussion.  If some of
> the fundamental assertions in the New Testament with respect to the nature
> of the Godhead and the nature of the gospel offend our most basic, a priori
> moral judgments about submission, then we would know that the God of the New
> Testament gospel is some kind of patriarchical creep.  God cannot be the
> source and standard of all that is good and lovely while also explicitly
> commanding women, for the purposes of illustrating the nature of the gospel
> itself, to live in precisely the way we do not think women ought to live.
> Andreas' personal distinction between ethics and reality will be of no use
> to the Christian when confronted with this beast of an argument.

I'm not comfortable arguing "against" Christianity, although I am not
a Christian, and my rejection was deliberate, not due to intellectual
laziness or lifestyle inconvenience.  I am not an atheist, as that
implies that I am anti-theistic, which wouldn't be true.  I generally
dislike labels, having wasted far too many hours in pedantic arguments
over their definitions, but the word "agnostic" describes me with
reasonable accuracy.  Let it suffice for the purposes of this
discussion.

Christianity has one major point in its favor, but that point isn't
unique.  That point is the Golden Rule.

"Do to others as you would have them do to you," Jesus said.

"Love your neighbor as yourself," Moses said.

"What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man," Hillel said.

"What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others," Confucius said.

Do you see where this is going?  Christianity brings nothing into my
life that that wasn't already available from other sources.  As I
definitely don't believe in the barbarism of blood atonement, that
removes it from logical consideration, for me.  Debating the nature of
the Godhead becomes ridiculous.  My a priori moral judgments about an
omnipotent, omniscient superbeing who could do no better than human
sacrifice already makes him some kind of creep.  God cannot be the
source and standard of all that is good and lovely while also being
such a bad planner.  I know, God works in mysterious ways.  Who am I,
to question God's design, when I am so insignificant before him?
Those arguments don't work for me, as we have not even established
that God exists.  I could say the same about the purple flying
chipmunks who keep the earth spinning, and it satisfies no one except
for those who already have faith.  Forget the Problem of Evil.
Concentrate instead on the Problem of God.    What Paul wrote about
submission (or anything else) then becomes as moot as the spectacles
of those flying chipmunks.

Sorry, but you did invite me to the discussion.  ;-)

-- 
http://emmagoldman.wordpress.com/

"Aren't people absurd! They never use the freedoms they do have, but
demand those they don't have; they have freedom of thought, they
demand freedom of speech." -- Søren Kierkegaard