Actually, people like the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, Retired Bishop of Newark, are trying to explore a metaphysical scenario in which the positing of a supernatural spirit “out there” à la the Great Sky Pixie is unnecessary; numerous approaches to Christian thought do not find it necessary to posit original sin – finding in the actual events of life sufficient reason for humans to require “saving” from each other’s inhumanity, one to the other, and a strong questioning of what “an end-time vision” may or may not entail and whether such a concept is necessary to anyone’s belief. However, such nuanced views of Christianity do get in the way of rejecting the simplistic concept of it that seems ingrained in the views of the “enlightened” folks who find it necessary to refute the sorts of claim that even intelligent fundamentalists do not offer.
Just as a quick parallel, perhaps the most effective gay activist in the history of the state of Colorado had a few months of absolute failure at everything he tried to do, during IIRC mid-1997. He then went back to college in Laramie and ran into a couple of guys at a bar up there. What happened as a result of that raised the consciousness of a wide range of people throughout the world who had no idea what the issues at stake were until then.
This anecdote is not to draw any more of a parallel than this: A shocking death can move people to change their lives, learn what they’re pontificating about through ignorance, and become more humane to each other, whether it be an itinerant rabbi in First Century Palestine or a young college student in Wyoming.
You may have a point. But it’s nowhere as strong as you claim. These assertions you present as fact are reasoned conclusions from Biblical scholars based on their own presuppositions about what implications can be read into a given prose style and theological stance. They are guilty of a form of circular reasoning – a reasonable one, given that they are trying to work from insufficient data. But that John’s Christology is much more Christotheist than Mark’s does not prove anything about the evolution of concepts about Christ, merely points to a likely scenario in which he effectively underwent an apotheosis.
Interesting. I have a Spong quote that plays off an opinion Gaudere once rendered in a religion thread; I want to start a fresh thread on that when I have it at hand to post.
But effectively Spong is saying that the evidence for God is and always has been indirect, not the sort of flashy miracle you call for as sufficient evidence and which the Bible seems to be chock full of.
Although, of course:
Final comment is that you have no grounds for definitively asserting who I may or may not have been in communication with, whether it be Mars Horizon, God, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn – your only assets are who you may or may not have communicated with, and the probability stance on whether the entity I claim to have communicated with actually exists – which is, of course, hotly debatable.
