An envelope arrived on our doormat this morning. It was addressed to "The Householder" so I guess that means me. Inside was a leaflet headed "Why You Can Trust The Bible" and a genuinely hand-written letter which is shown below:-
To tell you the truth, I very rarely think about God, Jesus, The Bible and all that stuff. I just do not need it in my life. As far as I am concerned it's all medieval hocus pocus and a distraction from reality. In saying that I apologise to any visitors for whom religion is their lifeboat.
Let's have a look at the leaflet's title: "Why You Can Trust The Bible". Well I am very sorry but you simply cannot trust The Bible. The history of its emergence on paper is long and complicated, clouded by unjustified partisan claims by various Christian and Jewish groups. There is also the question of translation to consider and the impact of Roman Catholicism and medieval monastic orders upon its transcription. Its earliest manifestations were written centuries after the death of Jesus Christ. Signing up to such a dodgy literary concoction seems very odd to me. It was created by men and not by any God.
As for Robert Lindley's question: Why does God allow suffering? Well, that's a very good question indeed. Why should African babies die from diarrhoea? Why should the rich get richer while the poor get poorer? Why should a smooth-talking tyrant like Bashar al-Assad wreak vengeance upon the already oppressed people of Syria - his own people? Questions about suffering and evil might well be endless.
Religion remains a useful prop for millions of people. It helps them to get by and I am among the first to admit that there have been very many good Christians who have lived blameless lives of kindness and prayer, helping their fellow human beings and doing good in the name of God. However, it is also hard to dispute the truth that religion has been at the root of so much bad stuff - including wars, anti-abortion movements, overpopulation, bigotry and denial of some of the basic truths provided by science, history and archaeology.
I wonder if I should get in touch with Robert Lindley? Maybe not...
Amen!!! to your philosophy (ha!)
ReplyDeletePuzzling response Dianne. I don't know what to make of it.
DeleteWell, he does seem to be a very pleasant chap YP. I am sure that you could have some very interesting conversations with him.
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about the fellow on the front of the leaflet?
DeleteJust two days ago we had a 'phone call from someone who said he is a neighbor ( I doubt it) and it was a similar content to your letter. I realized that the Jehovah's Witnesses have been unable to do their usual house to house solicitation so they are using the 'phone or letters until the epidemic is over.
ReplyDeleteSo far we have not heard from any LDS!
LDS? Latter Day Saints? Don't know anything about them.
DeleteI think you need to have several very long and serious conversations with this gentleman.
ReplyDeleteYou mean the fellow on the leaflet or Robert Lindley?
DeleteConventional religion is not my thing, though I practiced Buddhism for years -- to me that's more of a philosophy, though. I just don't believe there's any kind of overseeing consciousness or being that controls things. The universe is chaos, and we just have to develop coping strategies! The Jehovah's Witnesses are known for their proselytizing. Be glad you didn't open the door! LOL
ReplyDeletePhilosophically I would have made mincemeat of Mr Lindley. He would have been a devil worshipper by the time he left.
DeleteWe get them Hovis witnesses knocking on our door and asking what bread we ate. I think they are called Hovis Witnesses. 😀
ReplyDeleteSeriously. We normally let them in and have a talk with them. They've not visited since last years lockdown.
I believe in Hovis. Don't just say brown, say Hovis!
DeleteI have had trouble with religion as far back as school. I posed a dilemma for our RE teacher by asking him whey the bible contradicted itself with 'eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth' but also 'turn the other cheek' he could't answer.
ReplyDeleteMy Father died the most horrible death and after that all religions were gone for me.
Nature is my kind of religion, it never lets me down and gives me peace.
All that said, good luck to people who adhere to any kind of belief that gives them what they need to get by in this difficult life.
Briony
x
Thanks for your honest response Briony.
DeleteI'm not fond of religions or the people who want to convert you to their religion. Either they're all right or they're all wrong. Imagine if we all minded our own business? Live and let live without hurting each other.
ReplyDeleteI do believe in the divine though, whatever that looks like, although I couldn't tell you what the divine is. My own made up religion maybe? Part nature, part love, part compassion?
I believe in the sun. No wonder our ancestors worshipped it.
DeleteIt looks so extraordinarily old fashioned too - You'd think they might update it just a bit.
ReplyDeleteAre you referring to the lamp?
DeleteIt is good to see the English keep up their sartorial standards even when relaxing at home.
ReplyDeleteThat fellow looks Australian to me - like Malcolm Turnbull when he was younger.
DeleteZoiks. I myself would not contact Mr. Lindell. Those sorts of people want to impart their take on things. I've got my own.
ReplyDeleteYou never get atheists posting or knocking on doors promoting their humanism.
DeleteFunny, we just got a religious chain mail letter in the mail, something I haven't seen in years. Supposedly you mail back a prayer request and a "prayer rug" they sent you (a square piece of paper with a creepy picture of Jesus with optical illusion eyes that at first appeared closed, but then opened as you stared at it) and after that they were supposed to send you a "prayer metal" whatever that is. And, I presume, a request for money. You also had to send stuff to your friends, too. I threw it all in the garbage but now I wish I had taken some pictures and blogged about it!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you entirely on this subject, Neil.
I hate bullshit like that. I honestly do.
DeleteIs a "prayer metal" a sword or perhaps a waffle iron? Jesus loved waffles.
Deleteand YP is a waffle person too. LOL.
DeleteSecular humanist here, Y.P. It saddens me that so many theists still suppress their own logic. How far have we really come from the dark ages? It seems my tolerance is wearing a bit thin.
ReplyDeleteThanks for calling by "Out to Pasture". If ever anyone asks me about my religion I say I am an atheist but "secular humanist" is probably a better description.
DeleteMy advise is leave Mr. Robert Lindley alone. He only wants to mess with your mind. For many corporate worship is great support in their lives.
ReplyDeleteI try to be tolerant but I must confess that I am very suspicious of all religions and of the mindsets of those who profess religious belief.
DeleteWell, you might want to invite Robert Lindley over to hear what YOU have to say. Because it's only fair that if he initiates a conversation with you, he should be willing to hear your part of the story.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I think, anyway.
I do not wish to be accused of being the spawn of The Devil in my own home. However, I would like to instruct Robert in the use of the apostrophe.
DeleteI would suggest that many atheists do good work too. Religion as philosophy is fine, but to take gods and devils seriously is delusional.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed - atheists, humanists, heathens - we all do good things and never to win brownie points on heaven's waiting list.
DeleteI get tired and mildly offended by posts like this one, simply because I've seen so many of them over the years but I would never make insulting statements about atheists.
ReplyDeleteYou should know that I respect you and the good work of the Salvation Army. However, I do not believe that I "insulted" believers in this post. I just told it as I see it.
DeleteYou are generally respectful and I thank you for that. Calling religion a prop always grates on me. My life is as hard or easy as anyone elses and I have to find resources for coping like everyone. Faith is no cop out, it's a reason to keep wading through poop, not a bridge over it
DeleteAround 50 years ago, my OH was living in a rented house with 2 other blokes......they had no TV, so one night when a couple of JWs knocked on the door they invited them in and " chatted" to them for several hours. P always says they saved the rest of the neighbours that night!
ReplyDeleteYou mean they didn't win him over? God moves in mysterious ways indeed.
DeleteWell as another non-religious person, I do actually feel sorry for Jehovah Witnesses. Sent forth into the world to preach the 'truth' of the bible, when it is a hotch-potch of stories captured from a pagan past of many gods. Goodness, or badness, is the lot of humanity not for some imagined white-bearded person in the sky to give judgement on.
ReplyDeleteOne can be good and do good things without any reference to supernatural beings or to veiled promises of an "after life". Who would want to live forever anyway? It sounds so presumptuous and egocentric too.
DeleteAn interesting post and comments YP.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has a right to their own beliefs, but sadly there are those in this world who can't tolerate, or allow, such freedom. History has shown us time and time again that mankind has hidden behind the cloak of religion to subdue, dispossess and persecute.
I wonder what suggestions some of the recipients would make of the question about making family life happy?
Incidentally, if you look at the online BBC website today, there is a video about five people's different religious beliefs.
I am never entirely comfortable with the notion that everybody has a right to their own beliefs CG. What about Adolf Hitler? What about The Islamic State? What about burglars and rapists? Thanks for the BBC website nod. I will give that video attention later.
DeleteYes, you're right about Hitler and the Islamic state, and history will remind us of many similar events.
DeleteI suppose I hadn't thought of the truly evil that is ever present. It's difficult to stop people having their beliefs, however misguided we may think them - look how Germany worshipped Hitler as their saviour. We see the same fanaticism today in the Islamic state.
Never trust anyone who doesn’t know that apostrophes are needed in Bible’s answers, God’s purpose, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
ReplyDeleteNo one will be allowed through the pearly gates without a proper command of the apostrophe.
DeleteOh dear - what will all those grocer's do!
DeleteI am friendly with a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, a kind and thoughtful man.
ReplyDeleteHe will not read any books of Christian theology which I recommend and is wholly ignorant of the early Church Fathers. He does not know the history of the Nicene Creed.
The Witnesses are a cult though not a venal cult like Scientology or the Moonies.
Their theology is Arian, a heresy exposed by Athanasius of Alexandria (Wikipedia) who was called *Athanasius Contra Mundum* because he stood up for the divinity of Christ when the church went badly astray in its Christology just like the Witnesses.
The Bible is not a hotchpotch of texts plagiarised from the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians etc. These people were idol worshippers.
God took a collection of Semitic tribes and made them a people who endure to this day, when the Babylonians and Assyrians and Hittites have vanished from the world stage.
See the Dr Jonathan Sacks (YouTube) who was Chief Rabbi in Britain until his sudden death.
Queen Victoria once asked her prime minister, the Duke of Wellington, how we can know there is a God. A man of few words, the Duke replied: *The Jews, Ma'am.*
To the Jews we owe the Ten Commandments, morality, and even the sense we have of being individuals with rights. In antiquity most people were slaves, and the slave was not a person.
The slave could be tortured, sexually abused and killed.
There was one people who acted and thought differently: *The Jews, Ma'am.*
Two world wars and bloody genocide in Europe, Asia and Africa were caused by territorial and political aggression, and what the despised Bible calls the mystery of iniquity.
In North Korea today young men and women are conscripted into the army for five years. Young women are sexually abused by officers. They are often hungry and cold because of poor diet and clothing. They have zero rights.
Getting a creepy Jesus prayer card through the post is not so bad when you think of what happens in North Korea and China. Be thankful.
Read Simon Sebag Montefiore's book on Stalin, *In the Court of the Red Czar*.
Stalin and his henchmen believed in human self-sufficiency and cursed the God they did not believe in. They murdered millions of men and women and children.
Not for a moment did they think they would have to stand before the Judgment Seat.
Paul Pot was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris and gave us the Killing Fields.
Saint Augustine and his monks landed in Thanet in south-east England in 597, bringing the Gospel to a sick world which practised human sacrifice.
Augustine likened our short life in this world to staying in a third-class hotel.
It is Augustine you have to thank for those country churches, Neil.
His Confessions (Everyman Library) is one of the most brilliant and honest books I have ever read.
Like C.S. Lewis, I read Augustine as an atheist and he made me feel uneasy and frightened.
*Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.* Proverbs 9: 10
Why do the children of the West now turn on our foundational book and treat it with such contempt?
All around me I see churches which are now pubs and a society in steep decline.
Haggerty (1951 - ): A brand plucked from the fire.
Why do they turn? Because it belongs to another age. The idea of God is absurd. Even so I appreciate your long response with its various pointers hither and thither. If only I had the time and inclination to travel down all those byways.
DeleteCredo quia absurdum: I believe because it is absurd.
ReplyDeleteAs W.H. Auden remarked: *Say what you like about the early Christians, at least they had an awareness of the reality of evil in the world.*
We see it every day on our TV screens and in newspapers.
Haggerty