This week, I’ve decided that we’re going to steer away from our regularly scheduled content and get into a few questions. Angela asked one of her friends who is agnostic and seems to take issue with organized religion to give some of her objections to Christianity. Her friend kindly obliged, so we’re going to discuss some of this agnostic’s questions and statements. I’m not posting my thoughts/answers until after we meet, so read over these and if you have some time, come up with some responses on your own, then be prepared to discuss Wednesday night, or go ahead and start discussing here in the comment boxes.
The message (no editing at all by me):
My objectives to Christianity and organized religion, for your research
I believe the original gospels were altered by people throughout history with political motives and gods true message has been skewed
Too many gospels were not canonized and some convey very different messages than what the bible does such as the gospel of Thomas
Mary magdelan was portrayed as a prostitute and she is not credited with anything more while evidence suggests she was one on Jesus’ closest disciples, look at the picture of the last supper it appears to be a woman sitting next to Jesus not a man.
Constantine was the most influential leader in the Christian movement but he had a huge political motive
The christian crusades and the holocaust were one of Christianity’s biggest failures. why didn’t the christian community stand together and defend gods commandment “love thy neighbor”
Spreading the word of god does not mean condemning people who do not share christain beliefs yet why does it happen so often?
Why does the catholic church require donations from their patrons and protect preists who molest children. Why don’t they permit marriage if it’s gods will for us to procreate, that is why we are all born with reproductive organs
Through my research I believe that the old testament was written in more symbolic terms to inspire the masses. I don’t literally believe adam and eve ate an apple offered from a serpent in paradise, or that noah built an ark and god flooded theearth, or that the red sea parted
Why is science dismissed in the Christian community so frequently? For example, we have proof that dinosaurs walked the earth. We have proof the Human species have evolved from a more primitive nature. Why don’t Christians accept maybe god placed a less advanced species on the earth with the intention we would evolve into who we are today.
What if Jesus was really just a man that saw a community that needed hope so he played the role of the son of god so he could lift peoples spirits and guide them towards a better life? Scientific evidence shows immaculate conception is not possible.
Why don’t organized religions consider maybe god just wants us to be happy and spread happiness and there isn’t any more to it than that…
—end of questions—
Most of these questions and comments make a lot of assumptions that most Christians do not know to be true and this person seems to equate Christianity with the Catholic Church, which many of us involved in this study would not agree with. Let me remind you to do your best to respond and discuss respectfully, acknowledging that we do not know each others’ personal struggles or backgrounds. You can give your opinion with facts to back it up, but don’t bash specific denominations or people.
In addition to the agnostic questions, we’re going to try to tackle Lindsay’s question about what happens to the Christian after he/she dies. There are spots in the Bible that sound as if there is an in-between place before all believers ascend to Heaven. Two specific passages that she cites are 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 and Revelation 6:9-11.
Piggybacking on that, we might get into the 4 eschatological views and this question/comment by online Bible study participant “John Bunyan”:
“I’m not sure what you Southern Baptists believe about dispensationalism. Growing up I had this stuff jammed down my throat. Northern Baptists read the KJV version of the Bible and generally have a more literal interpretation of the Word of God.
I think Shandonites would be cool with dispensationalism because Pastor Lincoln routinely talks about how Christians overcome sin by grace through faith. Dispensationalism teaches that we are in the age of the Church where the only way to be saved is through faith of Christ’s work. I don’t want to get into a debate about this, but if it is something that you are cool with I would love to explore it deeper. I think it would be worthwhile to look at the Old Testament and the New Testament under the context of God’s covenants with his people and ways for salvation.”
We’re not going to have time to cover everything, but we’ll get as far as we can get and cover the rest online or in another meeting. So, get to studying and I’ll see you Wednesday or here in the comment boxes.
18 Comments
Amy · June 21, 2011 at 10:33 am
“look at the picture of the last supper it appears to be a woman sitting next to Jesus not a man”
Can I take on this one please!!! 🙂
April Adams · June 21, 2011 at 10:36 am
Yes, please! I thought of you when I read that one, haha.
Amy · June 21, 2011 at 10:41 am
I realize that it is probably the least important question of all these, but as an art historian I am so tired of hearing this.
April Adams · June 21, 2011 at 10:52 am
Well, it’s time to clear the air 🙂
D B · June 21, 2011 at 11:16 am
Well i would say I have some objections to the objections, as a catholic christian. But, at the same time I am not extremely well versed so this should be a very interesting meeting.
Samantha · June 21, 2011 at 2:17 pm
I guess I don’t understand why the question was brought up why a women is sitting next to Jesus at the Last Supper. I didn’t realize it was important. i guess I just thouht maybe she was serving him.
Samantha · June 21, 2011 at 2:22 pm
About the dinosaur issue, I don’t know about other christians, (because we can’t all be put into the same category) but I believe that there were dinosaurs that were on the earth. we have found actual bones like the guy said and Job and God even talked about the monsters in the book of Job. Now on the other hand, I’m not so sure I believe that we have found a link between the apes and the human. Scientist, just like anyone else with a lot of knowledge of trickery, can make something fit together even if it doesn’t. take photoshopping for instnace. you can put someone’s face on another persons body and make it look real. It doensn’t mean it is. even if that is not good enough for an argument, i don’t see us evolving right now as we speak. yes the human race is turning more terrible but we aren’t turning into something else. yes genes are being mutated but a bird is a bird and nothing else.
Bergeron · June 21, 2011 at 2:51 pm
As a scientist I can say that humans will not evolve further. Evolution is based off natural selection and adaptation. Humans no longer keep anything natural and we adapt through technology leaving no need for someone with “better” adaptation to be selected for. I can go a lot further into this but I am too lazy at the moment.
Samantha · June 21, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I believe that the issue with Adam and Eve and the other “stories” have to be taken by faith. However, you can see the results today of what happened because of Noah’s flood.
Amy · June 21, 2011 at 2:50 pm
(oh I study art history in case you dont know me)
This is in response to the question about Dan Brown’s theory that Mary Magdalene is in Da Vinci’s Last Supper. There are so many great questions in this list to discuss so let’s get this one over with…. Don’t let anyone try to trip you up by this theory. Most historians and art historians realize nearly everything in this book is fiction.
Firstly, works of art (especially from the renaissance) should never be read as biblically correct. Art is more about artistic tradition of representation and little to do with biblical truths. Da Vinci was not present at this scene! Even if he did paint a woman here, that does not prove much but actually most agree that HE DIDN”T. Many artists never studied the scriptures, but only went off of other, older paintings. They paint for the patron and are expected to use the accepted traditions.
One of these traditions is used in Da Vinci’s Last Supper. John is always shown sitting near Jesus, he is usually quite young and sometimes the only unbearded disciple. These were used to make John stand out as Jesus’ most beloved disciple. He was also the youngest. There is also a theory in art at this time from the neoclassical philosophy that beauty=holiness. This caused artists to show the most holy figures as incredibly (or even unearthly) beautiful. We get a lot of young, beautiful Virgin Mary figures from this idea. She is shown young and beautiful at the scene of the crucifix even though she should have been middle aged by this time. You can look at numerous Last Supper paintings and John may look feminine/beautiful, but that is because this is how artists at the time were able to show youth. He is often shown asleep!! And leaning on Christ’s shoulder or chest. This is said by many art historians to emphasize his youth and that he did not realize the importance of the event. Da Vinci depicts the moment Christ says “one of you will betray me” and we see a large variety of reactions from the disciples. John gasps and leans backwards as if he had just been leaning on Christ. Dan Brown makes a lot of what he believes to be a symbol of the divine feminine (the upside down triangle between John and Jesus) This is just silly. The triangle (which is present many times throughout this painting both upside down and right side up) is used throughout the renaissance because it was thought of as a perfect, stable compositional element. Christ himself is the shape of a triangle… he is strong and stable.
Does he look like a woman? Eeehh, a little BUT not after you look at many other young men in Da Vinci’s paintings. He often depicts young men in very sensual feminine ways…..And not after seeing many other depictions of the scene. Like I said before, this is just the traditional way artists used in order to depict men that were young. When looking at art (especially renaissance/catholic art) the most important thing to the artist and patron was that it was “readable” . Each saint had symbols, each religious or historical figure had attributes that were shown with the figure. Remember these people could not read (and the Bible was not even in the common language if they could read) . ART was the main way they got their information. It was made for instruction. Someone at this time would look at this painting and know instinctively that this was John because this is how he is always shown.
I don’t have the time or space to talk about this much but if this is Mary M then the scene is missing a disciple! This may not seem important but there is no evidence of any other Last Supper painting missing a main character like that…. Remember art at this time is all about tradition and being read correctly. If there were the wrong amount of people in the scene it could be read incorrectly by the people as a different story.
Finally, about The Da Vinci Code” in general. The group mentioned in the book (Priory of Sion) that Da Vinci was supposedly a member is not a real group. It was a hoax in France decades ago. A fake manuscript was placed in the French library and later discovered. It was a fictitious history created by a man who was starting a secret society in the 1960s!!!
There are so many historical inaccuracies in this book it would take a book just as long to speak about them all.
Whether Jesus was married or not I do not know, but Brown gives us no real evidence for this in his book. It is a work of fiction meant for fun. Every art historian I have known has refuted his theories (especially the theory about Mary M. ) and these are not all Christian historians I know, many are agnostic and would be happy to prove this theory right.
I bet Dan Brown didn’t even believe in it until he saw the controversy and realized that if he played along he could make more news and sell more books (that’s just my theory though) 🙂
I hope this is enough to help understand some reasons why this theory of Mary M in the Last Supper should not be used against our faith. …. If not I can find more…. There are many more pressing questions about Christianity so I hope this book can soon be put aside as not really relevant.
Lindsay · June 22, 2011 at 7:28 am
Unfortunately, I won’t be there tonight to discuss, but I would love to hear others’ thoughts here!
Stephen · June 22, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Good questions Lindsey. I have a good friend that is an agnostic and we have a lot of interesting discussions. I noticed a pattern here that most of the questions relate to “man/woman” and “man’s/woman’s irresponsibilities”, and yes we are all sinners and imperfect beings.
I didn’t have time to answer all the questions, ’cause I’ll be late to bible study, but maybe you’ll be able to come next time.
Q: “I believe the original gospels were altered by people throughout history with political motives and gods true message has been skewed”
>> As it is God’s word he would not allow this to be altered. However, let’s play devil’s advocate and say it could have been altered due to political motives. While yes, that is a possibility, if we go to the some of the actual written texts, the dead sea scrolls and more, written in different languages, ancient hebrew, greek, etc.
When they were translated over, when you read the bible for yourself, you will notice tons of parallels from people that didn’t know each other at that time, but their stories were all the same.
I can see your point, but if there are a lot of similarities from different people, it would actually make sense.
Q: “Why is science dismissed in the Christian community so frequently? For example, we have proof that dinosaurs walked the earth. We have proof the Human species have evolved from a more primitive nature. Why don’t Christians accept maybe god placed a less advanced species on the earth with the intention we would evolve into who we are today.”
Depends. There are actually a lot of science and history that proves God and his marvelous works of art, planets and such, but that would be another topic. I wouldn’t say “The Christian community” dismisses it, that would be a generalization like all people are this way. Some people dismiss it, and some non Christians dismiss it too.
And yes, I agree dinosaurs are real obviously, and many other things. The reality of it all is something comes from something.
But I see your point, there are some things in science we can disagree to a certain point. We however dismiss some things like Stephen Hawkin’s theories that something comes from nothing; that we came from a worm hole.
But let’s look at the other side. In science, something always come from something. Let’s say hypothetically the big bang happened. Who created that? Who created us? i think that’s cool, because you wonder to yourself. Where did I come from really?
Anyways, I better go to bible study or else I’m gonna be later, lol.
Have a good one.
Stephen · June 23, 2011 at 12:06 am
Oops. My Bad. When I wrote my response, I thought Lindsay was the friend that asked those questions, lol.
Only to find out her name was something else.
Sorry about that Lindsay. 🙂
April Adams · June 23, 2011 at 9:44 am
Stephen, I edited your comment to not give the other person’s name, haha. Might not be good to place it on the Internet 😉
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