The New York Times brings this into focus with their complete failure to comprehend the concept which makes Easter a celebration for Christians. The NYT had to issue a correction to its description of the fundamentals of Easter:
"Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life. In urging peace, Francis called on Jesus to ''change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction:April 1, 2013
An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven."
Of course the revision is still wrong: Jesus was not "resurrected" into heaven; he ascended.
These points are fundamental and when they are misunderstood it shows the depth of understanding which Atheists actually have of the religion which they despise.
8 comments:
Elisabetta Povoledo is Catholic.
On top of that, it was "on the third day", not "three days after"...
How do we know this one person is an atheist?
And if this person was an atheist, why should we take this one data point over studies by Pew which do show atheists know more about Christianity than Christians?
The reflection is on the "layers of fact checkers" and the editors of the NYT specifically.
As for Pew, I suspect that because Atheists are largely white males with degrees in specific disciplines, if a one to one demographic comparison were done, that Atheists would fare far worse.
And the fact that pew found only 1% of respondents to be Atheist also skews the data, along with asking questions which were non-meaningful theologically, but were factoids which could be found in children's biblical cartoon books (for Christianity).
People within a religion are not motivated to study other religion's factoids; it is possible that some Atheists once were seekers who did study the factiods of the major religions, without getting deeply into the actual theology of any.
This falls into the category of data which is valid but misleading and incomplete, similar to the vaunted IQ tests showing Atheists with one or two points over the norm. I think that IQ tests favor one demographic over another, and are not valid indicators of a person's mental acuity.
In the case of Easter, it is not the fact of Jesus resurrection and ascention which is important; those are factoids which even the NYT doesn't get right. The importance is in why he did it. That's where theology of Christianty begins, not wiht the factoids.
Question:
What would you say that the overall narrative of the bible is?
@Stan: I would agree with Lewis. The Old Testament Bible (as much of it as I can grasp and hold in my head) seems to be a picture coming into focus. It establishes our Fallen nature and God's loving nature (love is not merely benevolence)and gives examples. It also documents the hammering process of one people, the Chosen people, whose centuries of tribulation finally come to a single point - a Jewish girl at her prayers.
The New testament establishes that Christ is the son of God through stories about him. This one man is sinless and blameless. He knows this and speaks as though he were what he says - "meek and lowly of heart". He also speaks of forgiving other people their sins, as though he were the party chiefly offended by their sins.
Finally, being a Man, he pays the price for our Fall and, being God, does it perfectly. Defeating death is partly the point - you cannot be reborn without dying first - and he shows us how to do it both on the scale of a lifetime and in each day's work. For all of us have to die daily, trimming our egos and our pride back. And it cannot be done by sheer will, for it is the will that is the problem.
So we apply to God for help. In his own nature he has nothing that corresponds to dying or death, but once he became Man and died for the sinners - a supreme humiliation - he could show us how it was done.
This is, for me, what the Bible has to say. I find the obedience the hardest part. A million excuses, some of them actually good, for not getting up Sunday morning and participating in the body of Christ. But the habit of obedience is the point, and I must have it if I am to become the thing I was made to be. When I do, I will finally be happy. Everything else is crap that will fall off me when I die.
That's what I see.
Also? My experience with atheists is that they have already reached a conclusion (rejection of God for themselves or Nothing) and so choose only the elements of the religious faith they are attacking that supports their rejection. Or appears to.
Thus they know quite a few religious tidbits and appear quite knowledgeable on the surface, but ten minutes discussion reveals they have a view of religion suitable for a six-year-old. And they are not about to correct it. It fits them just fine; as with any "fundie", they 'know all they need to know'.
Stan - This is a side issue but where can I read about your experience of change from an atheist to what you are now ( I did try and email you by the way).
Marc
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