From ptrourke@mediaone.net Sun Apr 8 09:29:22 2001 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.03) with ESMTP id f38GTLK15412 for ; Sun, 8 Apr 2001 09:29:21 -0700 Received: from chmls05.mediaone.net (chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.03) with ESMTP id f38GTKM18621 for ; Sun, 8 Apr 2001 09:29:21 -0700 Received: from PatrickT (h00500480cb85.ne.mediaone.net [24.147.81.130]) by chmls05.mediaone.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f38GTJx15001 for ; Sun, 8 Apr 2001 12:29:19 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <000b01c0c048$e5f39ca0$82519318@Rourke.ne.mediaone.net> From: "Patrick T. Rourke" To: Subject: Re: religious foundations/virgin hero cults Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 12:28:09 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 > Evangelizing even now tends to be a relational process. That is, > a non-Christian meets a Christian, they get to talking (and talking and talking > usually). The Bible really isn't usually trotted out until the person is at > least ready think about becoming a Chrisitan. Bible thumping has found to be > distinctly ineffective with people who know nothing about it But of course there really aren't too many non-Christians left who genuinely know "nothing about the Bible" - anyone on the planet with *any* education at least knows who Jesus was. But I think the issue of literacy is central to this whole question of conversion; and yes, it was Augustine's "Tolle, lege" I was thinking of in particular, and I see everyone's points. > That is a singularly ineffective approach because (setting aside > the problems with objectivity) not everyone accepts the Bible, > so its status as an authoritative text is under attack. Well, falsifiability, religious faith, and the authority of scriptures is a huge problem. The authority of the Bible is entirely dependant upon two things: faith that the Bible's composition was inspired, and faith in (or scientific study of) the transmission of the Bible's text, as the authority of the hadith are dependent first upon faith in the absolute authority of the Prophet, and then second upon the preserved chain of transmission for each hadith. Remove one's faith in the inspiration of the Bible, or in the authority of the Prophet, and there are no grounds for the authority of the text of Scripture. Within the Christian faiths the Bible is always an authoritative text to some degree or other: among some communities it is an absolute authority, while most others grant it greater or lesser degrees of authority, so that in the most "modernized" of Christian communities the New Testament is granted nearly perfect authority even while Genesis is granted little or no authority beyond its first sentence. (For those who are not members of the community of Christian faith this does not seem particularly consistent.) What little maneuvering room there is for critique of the NT is in the Epistles, particularly in Paul's interpretation of Scripture and in the Apocalypse. Once a critical approach is taken to the Gospels' (or Acts') account of history (i.e., the account of the biography of Jesus and the early history of Christianity), the theological and doctrinal issues multiply exponentially. > the story of St. Antony, who entered a > church, heard the words of Matthew 19:21 ("sell all you have and > give it to the poor...") and actually went out and *did* it. Gotta hand it to the guy: he was the very opposite of a hypocrite. .