xRobot: Sam Harris and Richard Carrier on the Rapture Videos

Added: Jul 4, 2008

From: AlecsDeLarge

Duration: 5:50

The future is a concept that many Christians have toiled with and tried to make sense of while reading the New Testament especially. When Jesus is sending his apostles out to teach the world and baptize “every creature,” (Mark 16:15) he makes it quite clear on a separate occasion that when doing so they ought to “take... no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” There are two of many possible interpretations of this verse. Either someone can take this statement on semi-respectable grounds: to not only prove the faith of his missionaries but also to show unbelievers the validity of Christ’s promise or someone can take this statement as an admonition to not prepare for the future because he or she will be taken care of generally. I find it difficult to believe Christians when they say that the “fringe” is the source for the latter. The danger of scripture is not that is states evil and deleterious actions which believers have to make to maintain stable membership but that it provides possible grounds, rooted in superstition, tribal connections, and non-truth, for these activities. One would have thought that the eucharist would have been a safe and peaceful practice. Believers eating wafers in the silence of their churches talking about the body of Jesus becoming real within their intestines doesn’t sound like an activity that one would expect to result in any sort of violence. Yet it is this very subject that justified murder of fellow Jewish citizens who supposedly committed “host desecrations” on Jesus’ body. By not respecting a pastry, the killing of Jews was justified. Could anyone have predicted this in anyway? In my discussions with believers on various forums, I hear them say that the inquisition and like claims were rooted in Old Testament connections that were clearly contradictory to New Testament maxims of nonviolence. The conversation will typically end up with me suggesting that when Jesus mentions to the Jews that they don’t have to loose “one jot or tittle” out of the law: indirectly these genocidal tendencies are in some way justified (he was the god that commanded these things in the OT anyway). They quote scripture after scripture that do in fact show Jesus’ teachings of nonviolence, yet I have to wonder why it is that he made it clear that the Old Testament laws are still valid. I don't care what Jesus may have said later or what his overall message was. His words in that instance are the very verbiage Augustine and other used to justify killing on a mass scale. The possible justification for killing is found throughout religious documents from varying authors.I find the “end of days” realm of Christianity to have a similar utilitarian scaling of benefit: rewarding personal well-being by maintaining job, family, etc , thereby tacitly endorsing the idea that the end of days is not near or rewarding religious devotion by taking the interpretation of leadership literally and immediately as is the case for the Christian in this video. This is what I don’t respect from either side: One is irresponsible to the point of tedium to detail so I won’t. The other is much more nuanced. I know of plenty Christians (a majority I would say they don’t actually believe this stuff) who don’t take Jesus’ returning prophecy seriously, much like the few Christians who didn’t think killing Jews for host desecration was justified. Those Christians doubt the words of the New Testament in a way that in some sense mirrors my own belief, they hold human solidarity above religious devotion. My contention is that their loose grip on religious matters is itself an intimated suggestion that the wholesale presence of faith ought to be justified thereby keeping the “extremist” or “literalist” interpretation extant. What I want is honesty in this discussion, the best method to rid us of taboo and shadow in this area. What they are willing to show by action, they ought to be also willing to admit by mouth... but do we expect that? No, it seems the fear of loosing religion is further cemented by claims that religion or belief in god is not a system based on propositions but on a “life orientation.” Statements like these carry with them a coverup for extremism and create a situation that is not falsifiable. It is my hope that we will see the same in this video and in any other area hence. I want us to be open and honest about the return of Jesus and other like ideas that have no foundation.

Channel: Education

Tags: barker  christopher  dan  dawkins  dennet  freedom  from  harris  hitchens  religion  richard  sam  society  trends 

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