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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
Elder
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Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida Flag
Last seen: 3 years, 20 days
Re: The Mainstream Christian Idea of "The Second Coming of Christ" [Re: dr_gonz]
    #12970743 - 07/29/10 07:48 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

I just received a weekly newsletter from the world's current authority on demythologizing Christ. I met him last year, we bowed to each other, and he said something positive about Gnostics. I'm planning on seeing him again this year on more than one occasion, despite his fees! I have read a half dozen of Spong's books. He helped me heal a rift between reason and faith.


John, via the Internet, writes:
For some time now, I have been reading your weekly essays and I have read many of your books. Your understanding of the Bible and your insight into it are remarkable. I am challenged by your thoughts. However, I read a lot about what you no longer believe, but what do you believe? Regarding Jesus, I would like to see, in a page or less, what your basic belief really is. Do you believe in any of the basic doctrines that we have been taught since childhood?

Dear John,
The way you phrase your question is a familiar one that I have heard many times. I do not, however, believe I can answer it without unpacking it. It is a regular criticism made by fundamentalists and the issue is not that I have staked out a new position, but that it is not consistent with what they were taught and so they hear only the negativity. For example, I have written a 300-page book on the birth narratives of the New Testament (Born of a Woman) that reveals quite clearly that I do not believe that these stories of stars, angels, wise men, shepherds and virgin mothers are literal. Yes, I can say that in one page. The bulk of the book is, however, an analysis of what these stories meant, why they were formed, what their background sources were and what the message is that we must be prepared to hear in these stories. About 95% of this book is an attempt to say what the birth stories of Jesus are really about. Yet, I still hear people like you say to me "you don't believe in the Virgin Birth, but you never say what you do believe." I do not plead guilty to that charge. I believe that is an expression of something present in the threatened defensiveness of my would-be critic that he or she cannot admit. I want to say: "Just what part of my elaborate explanation are you incapable of grasping?"
The same thing is true about the resurrection. I have written a 350-page book (Resurrection: Myth or Reality) on what I think is behind the Easter narratives. I do not think these narratives have anything to do with a resuscitated physical body. When Fundamentalists cannot hear that, they only hear a challenge to their own limited belief system and so they experience it as negative. That is when I get a letter from them asking me to state in one page or less what "I do believe."
You ask specifically about Jesus. I respond that in my book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, I spelled out in intimate detail what I believe about Jesus and what the Jesus story is about. I went into the miracle stories, the differences in the gospel accounts and the role the Hebrew Scriptures played in the developing Jesus story and I concluded that book with the deepest affirmation of why I believe in Jesus and call him Lord that I know how to write. So when you request a statement about what I really believe about Jesus, I have to assume that you haven't, you can't or you won't hear what I have written.
The real problem with fundamentalism is that it narrows the brain to the only options that fundamentalists understand. When any discussion goes beyond those limits, they hear only negativity and so they begin to press for a more positive statement, i.e., one that confirms their childish Sunday school images.
So I do not think your question is really about me so much as it is an insight into where you are. I, therefore, cannot answer it in a way that would be satisfactory to you — so I cannot respond to it.
I recognize that this sounds harsh and that is not what I intend, but I have reached the point where I no longer desire to affirm ignorance as if it is a form of piety and I see no virtue in trying to respond to a question that reveals no ability on the part of the questioner to listen.
– John Shelby Spong


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: The Mainstream Christian Idea of "The Second Coming of Christ" [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #12970791 - 07/29/10 08:17 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

I don't see that question as so offensive. :shrug:

Anyway I wonder why everything was written supposedly as analogy when it's obvious that it has caused such problems?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: The Mainstream Christian Idea of "The Second Coming of Christ" [Re: circastes]
    #12970796 - 07/29/10 08:19 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

circastes said:
Everyone knows religion is just an accepted form of making a total mockery of yourself.





"Everyone knows"? Is what you are saying actually "you believe" something and so it is true? I'm pretty sure everyone doesn't know that.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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OfflineBlueCoyote
Beyond
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Registered: 05/07/04
Posts: 6,697
Loc: Between
Last seen: 3 years, 1 month
Re: The Mainstream Christian Idea of "The Second Coming of Christ" [Re: Holoverse]
    #12971284 - 07/29/10 10:59 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

"So.......doesn't change the fact that YHWH is the father God of that book, and all these things, he told us to do.

So youre saying when Christ came, God suddenly became unwrathful and nice???  Uhhh...Revelations???"
No, g*d is still the same, neither nice or bad.
It's da great prophet Jebuz who said it's not us to do bad things and mix with g*d's' business :smile:
This was not clear before. That's what contrasts the NT against the OT.

"Mine is the revenge"
Rome burned. Babylon will fall.
That's the second coming, when people (are forced to) even honour g*d inside of them.


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'


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InvisibleSilversoul
Rhizome
Male User Gallery

Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
Re: The Mainstream Christian Idea of "The Second Coming of Christ" [Re: dr_gonz]
    #12976543 - 07/30/10 12:01 PM (13 years, 6 months ago)

If you really want to get fundamentalists riled up, bring up the possibility of Christ coming back as a woman.


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Invisibleenthiangenic


Registered: 02/14/10
Posts: 527
Re: The Mainstream Christian Idea of "The Second Coming of Christ" [Re: Silversoul]
    #12976642 - 07/30/10 12:36 PM (13 years, 6 months ago)

I live in the "Bible Belt" so I've dealt with tons of Christians(so they say) that have some of the most fucked up ideas of the bible and Christ. I'm not a Christian, anymore anyway, I was until I turned 13 and I could see through the bullshit. Christianity is a business, like any other, they need lots of customers to buy their shit so they can make a lot of money to further their business. I've seen churches raise thousands of dollars just to build another church a few miles down the road next to a different denomination's church. Who are they really helping by doing that? I've seen "Christians" harass people because they believed in something other than Christ, they say they are trying to convert heathens. And most frequently, I see "Christians" distort the bible to fit their own ideas and beliefs. The fact is that most "Christians" don't have a clue what's in the bible, they only know how to recite the verses they know and like. "Christians" have only succeeded because they applied such force on the masses...If the fight had been fair, you can bet there would not be so many of them. Arguing with a Christian is a losing battle because their answer to most every question is that God did it, either himself or through man...that's a horrible answer.


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