Notes on:
The issue of authority did not come out of the blue. It's a recent baby step in the process of "cleaning house" - organizing the clutter left after decades of thought.
I've had a lot of time to read lately, including Buddhist, Taoist and Christian writings. I've been increasingly annoyed at the tone of these writings: "This is the way things are". Content either comes directly from the source (such as Jesus or Buddha) or from "authoritative" commentator, such as St. Paul. The validity of these writings depends completely from authority of the writer or the authority he quotes. There is much ancient wisdom to be found in the "scriptures", but also a lot that is plainly unacceptable to the modern mind. And, of course, there is the elephant in the room. The fundamental assumptions underlying all of these writings - so fundamental to be not worth questioning or even mentioning - is the existence of God. This an offence to reason and we are constantly left with the job of finding something valuable in the writings of people who would regard us as dangerous heretics.
Another factor was Asimov's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Mathew uses logical back-flips, mis-quotes and fallacies to make his case that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament prophets. I happen to know quite a bit about this issue, having written a term paper on the subject back in my University days. The Messiah of the prophets is clearly a mythological creation, what I call "Everything that Israel Stands For"-the Super Jew. Connection to the person of Jesus (or any real person) is risky at best, but I didn't appreciate how flimsy until I read Asimov tear Matthew to bits, verse by verse. Asimov (a jew by birth and an atheist by choice) is careful to point out that the Jews at the time violently opposed Matthew's logic and happily stoned its advocates to death. While the penalty seems extreme, their objections seem quite reasonable. If you take the Old Testament seriously, the New Testament is heresy. If you don't take the Old Testament seriously, the New Testament is irrelevant.
Asimov does a similar job with Mark and the life story of Paul, as told in Acts. I had always felt that the personality and character of Jesus somehow "shone through" all this hype, interpretation and glorification. Once Asimov was through with me, I wasn't so sure. Did I know anything at all about Jesus? This is not the first time such a thing has occurred to me. I wrote about it in "Monkey Boy", one of the most popular posts in this blog.
So, If I have lost that feeling of connection with Jesus, which was more about liking the man rather than the teachings, what is left? If we set aside all the politics of the Zealot, the theology of John and the Messianic hype of Matthew, what's left?
Not much.
And then, the inevitable question arises: suppose you did have a collection of the actual, unfiltered sayings of Jesus (once I thought I had such a thing in the Gospel of Thomas)? Why would I take it as more authoritative than any other writing? The answer inevitably depends on whether I believe that Jesus is divine. Obviously I no longer consider this to be a possibility.
I was influenced further by Asimov's commentary on the Old Testament, which reveals that what we regard as "orthodox Judaism" was relatively new in the time of Jesus. For example, it did not exist in the time of David or Solomon. Like much of the rest of the Old Testament, Priestly religion is read back into everything from Genesis onward -- something I knew already but it had not "sunk in". Bottom line is that you see Judaism still in flux during the time of Jesus, with Jesus quite likely stepping in as a reformer of Judaism, preaching mainly (or exclusively) to Jews with a message that is not likely to be intelligible, let alone relevant to modern readers. To believe that Jesus had a message for non-Jews, you need to accept Paul's "spin" on Jesus, which was vigorously resisted by the original disciples, all of whom were Jews.
Added to this is my previous decision to stop identifying myself as a Christian, mainly as a protest about all the mayhem that has been committed in the name of that religion since New Testament times.
So I wind up with a total rejection of Christianity, pulled up by its roots.
But then, why is Christianity so popular? Why have others not followed my train of logic? The answer, it seems to me, is authority. Acceptance totally relies on authority - ultimately in the divine authority of Jesus Himself. Seen from this perspective, assuming there is no such thing as "divine", you see the divine aspect of Jesus as a necessary pre-condition to claiming Him as the ultimate authority and, less plausibly, for those who claim to inherit the same authority by mystical means.
Rejection of all religion on the same basis is just one step further.
I then turn to ask if there is any human authority. Could there be such a person? I'd say that authority comes (if at all) from what the person is saying, not the reputation of the person. For example, we regard Euclid's theorems on geometry as authoritative but don't feel obligated to know anything about Euclid or his political opinions (in fact Euclid may not have existed at all). Einstein said a lot of things that were profoundly true and a few things that were plausible but wrong. If a previously-unknown paper by Einstein turned up, it would get special attention because of its famous author but it would not be simply accepted without question. We have grown up enough to think for ourselves and respectfully disagree with any human being, even the wisest among us.
Does character count for nothing? I'd say only in a negative sense. Someone who is known to be a liar or a con-man deserves to be totally ignored even if what he says seems reasonable. This that we are entitled to ask about not only the content of what a person is saying but to ask why he's saying it. Life is short. We don't have time to carefully weigh the evidence for every crack pot conspiracy theory, "proof" of God or revolutionary theory of everything.
But we also don't need to be right about everything. It's OK to be wrong and OK to trust no authority at all.
The issue of authority did not come out of the blue. It's a recent baby step in the process of "cleaning house" - organizing the clutter left after decades of thought.
I've had a lot of time to read lately, including Buddhist, Taoist and Christian writings. I've been increasingly annoyed at the tone of these writings: "This is the way things are". Content either comes directly from the source (such as Jesus or Buddha) or from "authoritative" commentator, such as St. Paul. The validity of these writings depends completely from authority of the writer or the authority he quotes. There is much ancient wisdom to be found in the "scriptures", but also a lot that is plainly unacceptable to the modern mind. And, of course, there is the elephant in the room. The fundamental assumptions underlying all of these writings - so fundamental to be not worth questioning or even mentioning - is the existence of God. This an offence to reason and we are constantly left with the job of finding something valuable in the writings of people who would regard us as dangerous heretics.
Another factor was Asimov's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Mathew uses logical back-flips, mis-quotes and fallacies to make his case that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament prophets. I happen to know quite a bit about this issue, having written a term paper on the subject back in my University days. The Messiah of the prophets is clearly a mythological creation, what I call "Everything that Israel Stands For"-the Super Jew. Connection to the person of Jesus (or any real person) is risky at best, but I didn't appreciate how flimsy until I read Asimov tear Matthew to bits, verse by verse. Asimov (a jew by birth and an atheist by choice) is careful to point out that the Jews at the time violently opposed Matthew's logic and happily stoned its advocates to death. While the penalty seems extreme, their objections seem quite reasonable. If you take the Old Testament seriously, the New Testament is heresy. If you don't take the Old Testament seriously, the New Testament is irrelevant.
Asimov does a similar job with Mark and the life story of Paul, as told in Acts. I had always felt that the personality and character of Jesus somehow "shone through" all this hype, interpretation and glorification. Once Asimov was through with me, I wasn't so sure. Did I know anything at all about Jesus? This is not the first time such a thing has occurred to me. I wrote about it in "Monkey Boy", one of the most popular posts in this blog.
So, If I have lost that feeling of connection with Jesus, which was more about liking the man rather than the teachings, what is left? If we set aside all the politics of the Zealot, the theology of John and the Messianic hype of Matthew, what's left?
Not much.
And then, the inevitable question arises: suppose you did have a collection of the actual, unfiltered sayings of Jesus (once I thought I had such a thing in the Gospel of Thomas)? Why would I take it as more authoritative than any other writing? The answer inevitably depends on whether I believe that Jesus is divine. Obviously I no longer consider this to be a possibility.
I was influenced further by Asimov's commentary on the Old Testament, which reveals that what we regard as "orthodox Judaism" was relatively new in the time of Jesus. For example, it did not exist in the time of David or Solomon. Like much of the rest of the Old Testament, Priestly religion is read back into everything from Genesis onward -- something I knew already but it had not "sunk in". Bottom line is that you see Judaism still in flux during the time of Jesus, with Jesus quite likely stepping in as a reformer of Judaism, preaching mainly (or exclusively) to Jews with a message that is not likely to be intelligible, let alone relevant to modern readers. To believe that Jesus had a message for non-Jews, you need to accept Paul's "spin" on Jesus, which was vigorously resisted by the original disciples, all of whom were Jews.
Added to this is my previous decision to stop identifying myself as a Christian, mainly as a protest about all the mayhem that has been committed in the name of that religion since New Testament times.
So I wind up with a total rejection of Christianity, pulled up by its roots.
But then, why is Christianity so popular? Why have others not followed my train of logic? The answer, it seems to me, is authority. Acceptance totally relies on authority - ultimately in the divine authority of Jesus Himself. Seen from this perspective, assuming there is no such thing as "divine", you see the divine aspect of Jesus as a necessary pre-condition to claiming Him as the ultimate authority and, less plausibly, for those who claim to inherit the same authority by mystical means.
Rejection of all religion on the same basis is just one step further.
I then turn to ask if there is any human authority. Could there be such a person? I'd say that authority comes (if at all) from what the person is saying, not the reputation of the person. For example, we regard Euclid's theorems on geometry as authoritative but don't feel obligated to know anything about Euclid or his political opinions (in fact Euclid may not have existed at all). Einstein said a lot of things that were profoundly true and a few things that were plausible but wrong. If a previously-unknown paper by Einstein turned up, it would get special attention because of its famous author but it would not be simply accepted without question. We have grown up enough to think for ourselves and respectfully disagree with any human being, even the wisest among us.
Does character count for nothing? I'd say only in a negative sense. Someone who is known to be a liar or a con-man deserves to be totally ignored even if what he says seems reasonable. This that we are entitled to ask about not only the content of what a person is saying but to ask why he's saying it. Life is short. We don't have time to carefully weigh the evidence for every crack pot conspiracy theory, "proof" of God or revolutionary theory of everything.
But we also don't need to be right about everything. It's OK to be wrong and OK to trust no authority at all.
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