watchthemusic:
I don't have any doubts that the religious texts that we have now are virtually identical to the ones that existed 2000 years ago. But my qualms are not with the reliability of the copies, it's with the reliablility of the original texts. They could have been copied perfectly down the centuries, but if the original versions were inaccurate in any way then it means nothing.
With reference to the New Testament, the earliest literary mention of Jesus didn't occur till 60-70 ad, in Paul's letters, some 30 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. No historian - literally none - made any record of Jesus until around 90 ad, 60 odd years after his death. Quite odd that the son of god - who supposedly made such an impact over the Jewish people under Roman territory - should fail to get a mention in any Roman's (or in any other's) historical records.
In fact Jesus wasn't even depicted as a human being in any texts until 90 ad - in Pauls letters, he gives us little reason to suspect that he is talking about anything other than a spirit or concept. Why should we then believe a text like the Bible, which aside from all the contradictory and just plain incorrect passages, invariably describes events that happened at least decades in the past, which gives plenty of time for hear-say to increase exponentially?
Or am I being too literalistic? Then how else am I meant to interpret it? Metaphorically? Allegorically? That would enhance the "meaning" behind the text perhaps, but, as Camus once said, the more meaningful anything becomes the less verifiable truth it contains. You can either interpret the Bible literally and put up with any criticisms based either in empricism or logic, or you can choose to interpret it metaphorically, which leaves you with no hope of being able to extract anything absolute - or at least objective - from the text.
My second point is related to the "place" of god in this world. Contrast the place of god 2000 years ago, with his place now, 2001 ad. Back at the dawn of our Christian calendar, God was used - as so many people have pointed out - as explanation of the world that our ancestors failed so miserably to understand with their primordial science. He was a physical (or should that be metaphyscial?) being, with real substance, and very definate human qualities. He was their explanation for all facets of the world: nature, space, morality, time, existence itself.
Today, November 8th 2001 ad, he performs much the same role, though slightly modified to fit in conveniently with our 21st century needs. No longer does he occupy the realm of nature, space and time: science is our new god here. Where god was once the all-powerful lord of these domains 2000 years ago, he now lies impotent. He is no longer needed in the physical realm because we have found a much more powerful, much stronger and much more infinite god: that of science.
Thus as our necessity for god as an explanitory tool shrank, so to did our concept of him. God has been used, historically, as the temporary glue to hold together our fragmentary pieces of knowledge. He has been our doorway to understanding the ascpects of our world that we otherwise do not understand: wherever ignorance, misunderstanding or uncertainty exists, there you will find god.
Now, in this world where science is rapidly putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, god is no longer the all-powerful metaphysical reality he once was. But, despite this, he still manages to occupy the small gaps left in the rapidly more complete puzzle: the parts that science (so far) has hitherto been unable to access.
So what is god now? Where he was once omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, infinite and the undisputed master of his entire creation, he existence is, in the present, a small, fragmentary one. So small, and so fragmented are these gaps in our understanding that god has become impossible to understand, define or grasp: which allows those individuals - who prey on ambiguity - to use this "incomprehensible" nature of god, as an excuse to play around with semantic logic and use it as contorted "evidence" to support their own premise. "Our premise suggests that god is too powerful to be understood", they say, "and as we can't understand him he must exist!". They fail to acknowledge, however, that god's incomprehensibility stems from the fact that his existence is so tiny and so fragmented - and the realms that he occupies so subjectively ambigious - that any attempt to understand our own concept of god as an absolute being are doomed to failure: predictable by even the most elementary standards of logic.
So what realms does he occupy now? Well, as I said before, only the ones that science have not been able to explain up until now. The three areas that I could come up with are: the creation of this universe, consciousness and morality. Approaching any said group of people with any of these three subjects is sure to lead someone to mention "god".
Now I'm not going to go on about it, but all of you here who have spoken of god speak of him not as a being, but as a concept. Not part of the external world, but of the internal one. Might I suggest then, that instead of searching for god you search for yourself (as corny as that sounds)? Seeing as your looking for the transcendent within, wouldn't it just be easier to look for the within within? Does it somehow enhance the meaning of your existence to think that your consciousness is transcendent in this way? Why do you need to search for god at all? What does he add to our lives that cannot be discovered in other ways?
If you search for spirits you will find them. If you are genuinely interested in understanding yourself, discovering humanity, then I would advise you to stop pidgeon-holing your direction towards the search for "god" and resume your search elsewhere. If you can find yourself, and be certain of it, then the belief in any transcendent spirituality - no matter how powerful - will pale into insignifcance. Whether god exists is a moot point: it shouldn't change the way you exist.
On the other hand, if you wish to busy yourself chasing shadows on the wall, then so be it. I'd be interested to see how many of them you can catch.
Edited by Renegade (11/07/01 07:41 PM)
|