Where, oh where, does the fun restart here?
This was interesting:
Wade's analysis is a striking example of Christianity's decline. 170 years of critical scholarship, dating back at least to J. Strauss' Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835), have demolished any possible rational defense of the gospels as history. Conservative believers are unable to refute Strauss' analysis, but they are able to ignore it. And they do.
Conservative scholarship generally begins with the axiom that the bible stories are true, and "reasons" from there. Fine. We can all be friends. But the result is
1. Conservative believers—Wade is an example—are unaware of the most basic facts and reasons supporting the conclusions of critical scholarship. It's not that they don't believe the reasoning; it's that they don't even know what it is.
2. Conservative "scholarship" fails to address critical facts and reasons, making conservative "scholarship" an in-house exercise, persuasive only to the already persuaded.
3. Conservative apologetics often, as in Wade's case, boils down simply to pep-rally boosterism, repeating what you believe, over and over, as if really really meaning what you say will make it true.
Stubborn insistence on the truth of the ancient myths is, in my opinion, is a recipe for the decline and fall of the religion. Makes you look silly. The greater culture laughs at you. The crappy thing is that as they ride their myths into irrelevance, conservative believers are taking with them the values—the morality, the belief in right and wrong and goodness and evil—that have been at the center of our culture and success.
That's a bad thing.
Wonder what the over/under is on HROT's Jesus police making some arrests in this thread?
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/getting_started_pocm.html
This was interesting:
Wade's analysis is a striking example of Christianity's decline. 170 years of critical scholarship, dating back at least to J. Strauss' Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835), have demolished any possible rational defense of the gospels as history. Conservative believers are unable to refute Strauss' analysis, but they are able to ignore it. And they do.
Conservative scholarship generally begins with the axiom that the bible stories are true, and "reasons" from there. Fine. We can all be friends. But the result is
1. Conservative believers—Wade is an example—are unaware of the most basic facts and reasons supporting the conclusions of critical scholarship. It's not that they don't believe the reasoning; it's that they don't even know what it is.
2. Conservative "scholarship" fails to address critical facts and reasons, making conservative "scholarship" an in-house exercise, persuasive only to the already persuaded.
3. Conservative apologetics often, as in Wade's case, boils down simply to pep-rally boosterism, repeating what you believe, over and over, as if really really meaning what you say will make it true.
Stubborn insistence on the truth of the ancient myths is, in my opinion, is a recipe for the decline and fall of the religion. Makes you look silly. The greater culture laughs at you. The crappy thing is that as they ride their myths into irrelevance, conservative believers are taking with them the values—the morality, the belief in right and wrong and goodness and evil—that have been at the center of our culture and success.
That's a bad thing.
Wonder what the over/under is on HROT's Jesus police making some arrests in this thread?
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/getting_started_pocm.html