Month: February 2007

A Humanist Jesus, Ctd.

This post prompted an avalanche of emails. It was indeed challenging. Maybe it will help Sam and me narrow our differences in the coming posts. Here's a typical response:

This note spoke to me more than anything I have read in your debate with Sam Harris.

I wrote to you a few weeks ago, stating my theory that religion grew out of man’s awareness that his time on earth is temporary and that he needed a power outside himself and more permanent than himself to to give meaning to his temporary time on Earth. A Methodist minister once told me that we all believe in a god and that god is the idea or goal to which we devote most of our time, talents, and treasure. In too many instances that god is the pursuit of fame, fortune, or power, (sometimes under the guise of religion) all of which are ideas bigger than ourselves, but unfortunately, they have no permanence. Often, we belatedly realize this too late as our lives draw closer to the end.

This is where Sam and I part company. He offers no alternative to our human need to believe in a power outside of ourselves that is greater and more permanent than ourselves. Worshiping some branch of ever-changing science, as Harris seems to suggest, cannot fill that need.

I share with your reader the belief that Jesus’ life and teachings offers each of us born in the Christian tradition an opportunity to realize our full human potential. Whether he was born of a virgin birth, walked on water, or arose from the dead is immaterial. It is the way he lived his life and his principles, and ideas that are permanent and ever-lasting. We can pray or meditate on these concepts in an attempt to incorporate him more fully into our lives and our ways of living. This is a goal worth pursuing.

Rudy vs Christianists

A reader writes:

I was mildly confused by this statement in your posting about Rudy and the Christianists:

"Land said the mayor’s annulment, divorce and subsequent third marriage will seal the deal against hizzoner for social conservatives."

Juxtapose it with this:

George Barna, a born-again Christian and the head of a research group that does surveys among faith groups, finds that only 19 percent of Northeasterners have divorced, compared to 27 percent of Southerners and Midwesterners. Barna’s surveys also revealed another surprise – the divorce rate among conservative Christians is much higher than for other faith groups. Twenty-seven percent of born-again Christians have been divorced, as opposed to 24 percent of other Christians, and – Holy Moly! – only 21 percent of atheists and agnostics.

What matters is not what Christianists do, but what they say. Don’t you realize that by now?

Face of the Day

Brownbackjoeraedlegetty

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) speaks to reporters as he campaigns at the National Religious Broadcasters convention for the Republican Presidential nomination February 17, 2007 in Orlando, Florida. As the race for president starts to heat up some of the Republican candidates are paying a visit to the religious gathering that some call the base of the Republican Party. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Obama Confronts the Base

A welcome development reported by Joe Klein:

At his very first Iowa town meeting, [Obama] showed the courage to tell his Democratic audience things it didn’t want to hear. Asked if he would cut the Pentagon budget, he said, "Actually, you’ll probably see an initial bump in military spending in an Obama Administration" in order to add troops and replace the equipment lost in Iraq. Then he told a teachers’ union member that he supported higher pay for teachers but also–the union’s anathema–greater accountability. The crowd was silent as he said these things. But there are different sorts of silence, and in this case, they were hanging on his every word.

He’s drawing huge crowds in South Carolina as well.