Howdy, fellers…
I hope y’all don’t mind my dropping in on the proceedings. I was directed here to this thread as being an example of “religious ignorance on display”.
That intrigued me. I’ve read a page or two of the comments. Most of your names are familiar, from ’51. It gets a little turgid over there. If I may, I’d like to add a few thoughts to the mix, here. As a change of scene, if nothing else.
Brief intro: I am a professed, believing, doctrinal Christian. College educated.
I wasn’t a Christian in college. Rather, a standard issue atheo-secular. Like most of my generation, I was hauled off to denominational church/Sunday School as a child. A terrific place to become inoculated against saving faith. Especially if you’re bright, inquisitive (I was a National Merit Semi-Finalist, so I suppose that is some kind of credential in regard to the former claim, applied to myself). So many of us found our questions were discouraged and unanswered, other than with a vague and general “don’t question, just believe.”
That, of course, won’t do.
So, I spent my adolescence and young adulthood happily playing for the “other team”. God was a fairy tale, Jesus Christ (in the words of a Flannery O’Connor character) a “trick on (n-words)”. Chesterton (I think) said that “in the absence of God, all things are permitted (Hitler and Stalin concurred)”. And if there is a behavior that religious folk call “sinful” that I didn’t engage in, I can’t think of what it would be. Other than what Bud Light drinkers do — an activity that had no appeal to me. But didn’t bother me a particle, in others. “To each his own”. What people did to themselves, or with others, was of no consequence. Either to me, them, or in general. How could it, in an accidental universe in which complex bags of chemicals evolved from randomly-assembled microbes, by mindless forces? Yes, there was the generally observed gentleman’s agreement to try not to hurt each other — at least when convenient. A mere suggestion, though. And the world’s most commonly violated agreement.
What I discovered, as I got older, and the pursuit of pleasure began to become less pleasurable in itself, is that the standard atheo-secularist view — what I came to call “Whateverism” (the belief in something, nothing, anything, everything — “Whatever” — as long as it’s not the Biblical God) —
was as useless in providing answers to the big questions of life — why am I here? Were did I come from? What is my destiny/purpose? Is there a meaning/purpose to all of this, and if so, what? —
as my “religious” indoctrination.
This, I’ll be frank to say, produced in me level of unhappiness. Which I attempted to assuage by unbridled intellectual and carnal pursuits.
Things came to a head when I stumbled upon — as a Christian, I now prefer “God led me to” — the works of C. S. Lewis. “Mere Christianity”, and “The Screwtape Letters”. I no longer remember which was first. But they were in rapid succession.
My reaction was as follows:
“Why has no one told me any of this before?” And:
“This is undeniably true. I give it my full intellectual assent. But I have to keep it at arm’s length.” I was still in my early 20s. And had a LOT of sinning to do.
There followed a protracted period, during which I was what an old hell-raising reprobate buddy of mine later described as a “closet Christian”. He made that announcement at a party he invited me to, after I had gone public with my faith (writing letters to the editor in rebuttal of mischaracterizations of Christian belief) thinking to put me on the spot in front of a room full of Whateverists. “Brig here is a Christian! You always were a closet Christian, though, weren’t you?”
I countered with “I’m out of the closet now, Bill.”
All that to say, that in regard to this:
So the most-educated of us are the least religious. And you think it's a coincidence?
I bet religious rates dropping off a cliff with the advent and spread of the internet is a coincidence, too?
I completely concur with those who would assign that to be a positive thing.
All religions are false. With one exception. And that exception isn’t even a religion.
It has been well-said that Jesus Christ is the least religious person who ever lived. He was adored, and worshipped, by virtually all. Especially sinners. And even a Roman centurion. “All”, that is — except for the religious authorities of His day. Who persuaded the political authorities to have Him executed.
Jesus did not come to establish a religion.
He came to establish a CHURCH. A church is a body of believers. The belief of the Christian church — which transcends all boundaries of denomination, nationality, class, race, or gender — is that Jesus is the embodiment, the manifestation, the incarnation, in human form, of the Primal Force which created the universe.
God became man. And willingly suffered death. Why?
I’ll be glad to go into that, if anyone’s interested.
Religion is about man justifying himself with “God” (or “god”), however (erroneously) conceived. Secular humanism, for instance (a wide variety of the encompassing Whateverism), is a (very informal) religion. Which puts man at the center of things, and denies the existence of God. It has its creeds: the universe has mindless, unguided cause(s), dirt became alive and organized itself into microbes, which turned into men over time… all sexual behavior is not just permissible, but sacrosanct… and the value of human life is relative, and assigned by the state. The last, so that the product of hetero sexual unions can be terminated as “non-human”.
Etc.
Okay. That’s enough for now.
Thanks for “listening” — if anyone did.
I’ll be happy to entertain any questions that are brought forth in a sincere, civil manner.
