Human Sacrifice

by IslandWoman 23 Replies latest watchtower bible

peacefulpete

Rational
Interesting comment, are you also familiar with the work of Dr. Raymond E. Brown? While retaining his Catholisism he does a good job of tracing the evolution of the ressurection and ascenssion elements.This supports your idea that the death was not in fact some Divine Plan to save sinning man by human sacrifice. He and others argue that the death was real but not understood to have been sacrificial by early writers.The ascension was symbolic of the elevation into the heart of God.The temptation to literalize was too powerful to resist.Soon the mystic beauty of oneness with God was superimposed onto mythic hero legends of the time.Heros died and ascended to the Gods.
My question is what is left to believe? How do intelligent men know what they know and yet persist to call themselves Christian?Help me understand.
RationalWitness

Peaceful,
The only book I have read by Brown is An Introduction to New Testament Christology. He does indeed do a good job of tracing the historical roots of NT elementals, but I am not familiar with his view of the reason for Jesus' death or the literalness/non-literalness of his ascension. (Brown does not discuss atonement theories or the ascension in AITNTC.)
However, he does write about the resurrection at some length, both in his "Preface to the Discussion" and Appendix II:
The developing sequence from the way in which Jesus presented himself during his lifetime to the way in which those who believe in him presented him afterwards is more complex than such a sequence would be for any other figure. In the case of others one might find an adequate explanation for development in logical, psychological, and other familiar diagnosable factors; but in the tradition about Jesus a unique factor massively intervened that goes beyond human diagnosis, namely, the resurrection. In the publicly received tradition of Israel (i.e., what a later generation would dub canonical) no one had hitherto been raised from the dead to eternal life, and so this claim of faith about Jesus had an enormous import. Besides heralding a victory over death, God's raising of Jesus to glory vindicated both the origin and the truth of the authority/power that he had claimed and manifested. His followers who saw the risen Jesus realized that he was even more than they had understood during his public ministry. the resurrection, therefore, makes it very difficult to explain away as romanticized creation the more explicit christology attested after the resurrection.
Theoretically and ideally, a presentation of NT christology should be able to take for granted the reality of the resurrection, since what is being studied are the records of those who both believed in and proclaimed the resurrection. Yet realistically, an introductory christology book such as this will be read by students who have heard that some scholars deny the reality of the resurrection; they may be suspicious, therefore, of the honesty of a presentation that omits all discussion of the issue. I shall try to do justice to both approaches by including a discussion of the reality of the resurrection but placing it in Appendix II below, so that it does not interrupt the treatment of christology proper.
Appendix II opens:
The raising of Jesus from the dead was unlike all the other restorations to life mentioned in the Bible.... The resurrection of Jesus, then, was the supreme intervention of God in human existence, the supreme miracle. No wonder that, on the one hand, the resurrection has become a principal apologetic argument for the truth of Christianity and that, on the other hand, the reality of the resurrection has been questioned.
One would need a book to do justice to all aspects of the NT presentation of the resurrection. Here, as explained on p. 106 above, I have a restricted interest. The christological presentation of Jesus by NT authors that goes beyond his self-presentation during his public ministry flows to a large extent from their belief that he was raised form the dead. The resurrection is a presupposition of NT christology, and so books on christology usually do not discuss the factuality of the resurrection. Yet those who read an introductory book such as this have often heard doubts raised about the reality of the resurrection and may well wonder whether NT christiology is a house built without foundations. To the contrary, in my judgment, the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is strong: and a brief treatment of it may help to remove misconceptions.
Brown then proceeds to review the general objections to the reality of the resurrection and the difficulties arising from the Biblical narratives of the resurrection, and to offer his analysis of their relative worth. I quote the above only to show that Brown does not deny the reality of the resurrection. (Your mention of Brown in the context of "the temptation to literalize.... mythic hero legends" suggests to me you may have mistakenly concluded that Brown denies a literal resurrection of Jesus.) As I said above, however, I do not know his views on atonement theories and the ascension.
There are, of course, ultra-liberal theological views that tend to 'psychologize' NT elements such as the resurrection, the ascension, and the meaning of Jesus' death, but honestly these are very much on the fringe of theological scholarship. A couple of exceptions would be Shelby Spong and John Dominic Crossan. I don't find much agreement personally with either of these individuals, but if you are familiar with Crossan and "the Jesus Seminar", you probably know of his compatriot, Marcus Borg. I very highly recommend Borg's books Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, The God We Never Knew, and Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. These books introduced me to a view of Christianity that was comfortably rational yet spiritually satisfying. I'm sure you understand I am not advocating or endorsing Borg's theological views blanketly. In my personal opinion, there is very little apodictic Christian doctrine--and what there is can be summarized pretty much in Jesus' 'two greatest commandments'. But Christian scholars, philosophers and scientists like Rene Girard, Walter Wink, Raymund Schwager, Roy Clouser, Richard Swinburne, John Polkinghorne, Ian Barbour and others have helped me to navigate a path of Christian spirituality safely away from the Scylla of dogmatic fundamentalism and the Charybdis of despairing atheism. The more I read from such authors, the deeper my appreciation becomes of God, not because I agree with everything the author may claim, but because my always-provisional understanding is being tested and in some ways expanded and refined by some bit of information or some alternative viewpoint. And it seems to me that God has given us more than enough evidence to recognize his existence and purpose--if we are looking for it (as opposed to looking for justification to dismiss it). I have recalled it before, but I will mention it again ... there is an old native American legend about a man who owned two dogs. These two dogs were constantly fighting. Which one will ultimately win? Obviously, the one he feeds best. So it is with matters of belief: if we feed our reasoning solely on a diet of metaphysical naturalism to the exclusion of rational theism, then we will probably become atheists ...
If your question "How do intelligent men know what they know and yet persist to call themselves Christian?" is not rhetorical, then I assume you are asking, 'How can men like Brown (or Spong or Crossan) know the Bible is not inerrant, that Christ was not literally resurrected, etc., and yet retain something called 'Christian faith'?" But as I pointed out above, Brown does NOT deny the literal resurrection of Christ. Spong and Crossan, I believe, do so, and you would have to ask them about this.
The remainder of your question about "what is left to believe..." sounds sincere, and I would be happy to respond to it. But it is really too general to be answered in a simple post. Can you ask something more specific? Or if you wish, my email is ALWAYS open to honest and respectful discussions of belief.
Best wishes,
RW
peacefulpete

Thank you for the response,and correcting me.You are right the conclusion of the symbolic nature of the ressurection and ascension are not Brown's.I confused him with Spong whose book Born of a Woman is largely a condensation of Brown's The Birth of the Messiah.He acknowledges his indebtedness to Micheal Goulder in his forward so I imagine Goulder may be his source for this arguement.I have not read his work.
I again notice that you associate nonbelief with dispare and metaphysical naturalism.Dispare results from powerlessness.I feel confident that humans have the capacity for change.Without the low valuation of people that Christianity engenders by it's endless emphasis on sin and the despirate need for salvation, humanists have seen a beautiful potential begun to be realized. As to metaphysics I discussed this in the Questians for Atheists thread.The changes will be gradual and with many setbacks.The setbacks largely do to the persistance of mystisism.
I am sorry about misrepresenting Dr. Brown. The question still is, if even a small amount of the scriptural teaching about Christ is disavowed by a Christian what becomes the anchor for faith? Men like Brown and Spong both being Catholic clergy puzzel me, yet I am indebted to them.
RationalWitness

Peaceful,
I again notice that you associate nonbelief with dispare and metaphysical naturalism.
What else would I associate atheism with, if not metaphysical naturalism? Why is there anything at all (rather than nothing)? Theists answer that question with "God"; atheists must answer it with "it just is". This is a naturalist answer to a metaphysical question, hence metaphysical naturalism. There's no way to avoid it. If you disagree, please explain.
As for nonbelief and despair, that association has been made by such atheist philosophers as Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus, and Jean Paul Sartre (among others). Russell spoke bravely about 'building our lives upon the firm foundation of unyielding despair' in his book Why I Am Not a Christian. I would agree that no atheist actually lives by that principle ... it's impossible to do so: the cognitive dissonance of living a life without ultimate meaning would lead to depressive suicide or, at the least, despairing self-absorption.
In this latter connection, in a 1991 address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Dr. L. D. Rue (an atheist) spoke on "The Saving Grace of Noble Lies". He affirmed that it is necessary for people to deceive themselves into thinking that they and the universe still have value despite the absence of God. "The lesson of the past two centuries is that intellectual and moral relativism is profoundly the case.... There is no final, objective reading on the world or the self. There is no universal vocabulary for integrating cosmology and morality." His solution was "the noble lie", i.e., one that deceives us and compels us beyond self-interest. It is a lie (according to Dr. Rue) because it falsely claims the universe is infused with value and because it makes a claim to universal truth; it is necessary and noble because, as Rue says, "without such lies, we cannot live." So the association of despair with atheism comes from atheists themselves.
What happens in practice, I believe, is that atheists subconsciously participate in the "noble lie" without realizing it, by smuggling theistic principles unconsciously into their philosophy so as to avoid total moral relativism and despair. Sartre (who was a Marxist) insisted that we create meaning for our life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action, for example, by becoming an activist. But that explanation offers no more permanent meaning to life than does the composting of dead leaves which regenerate the soil each year. Nazi vivisectionist Dr. Josef Mengele was passionately devoted to his work of medical science; did his life have meaning? What about the lives of his subjects? Did they have ultimate meaning?
As another way to look at this, consider an act of self-sacrifice. Several winters ago an airliner crashed into the icy Potomac River in Washington, D.C. One passenger, poised to take the rope ladder from the rescue helicopter, repeatedly pushed the ladder to other passengers rather than take it himself. After placing other passengers' lives ahead of his own about six times, he was swept away to his death. Now if there is no ultimate justice, no ultimate reward for such sacrifice, and all those who demonstrate this kind of humanitarianism are ultimately the 'losers' ... how can that not lead to despair? Christian theism, on the other hand, posits an ultimate value of human life, enforced ultimately by God.
Now I want to ask about something you said:
Without the low valuation of people that Christianity engenders by it's endless emphasis on sin and the despirate need for salvation, humanists have seen a beautiful potential begun to be realized. As to metaphysics I discussed this in the Questians for Atheists thread.The changes will be gradual and with many setbacks.The setbacks largely do to the persistance of mystisism.
First, I disagree wholeheartedly that Christianity devalues people (or engenders such a devaluation). On the contrary, Christianity teaches that every human has ultimate and incalculable worth. Traditional, orthodox Christianity claims that God values humanity so much that He indwelt a human, Jesus Christ, and suffered death in behalf of mankind. [Note that this in itself does not presuppose the 'sacrificial' view of atonement which opened this thread.] Jesus' illustration of the shepherd leaving 99 sheep to recover the one lost one demonstrates that valuation graphically. Blaming Christianity for what individual Christians or even 'Christian' nations or religious organizations do is like blaming medical science for what Josef Mengele did. The question must always be asked, why was this or that done? Was it done because this is what Christ taught Christians to do? Or was it done despite what Christ taught Christians to do? Even if Christians misapply Jesus' words to justify their own wrong actions, that does not indict Jesus as an accomplice.
The "endless emphasis on sin and the despirate need for salvation" you mention is very typical, of course, of Christian fundamentalists, including JWs. But it is worlds apart from modern Christian belief as found in the sources I have mentioned elsewhere. In the NT the onus is not on humans to be sinless (something the Scriptures show is impossible), but rather to accept God's explicit forgiveness and reflect that same non-judgmental love toward others.
You also said:
...humanists have seen a beautiful potential begun to be realized.
I do not disagree. Humanitarians of all stripe have made wonderful progress in many areas of human endeavor. And yet we live in what anthropologists and others have called the most violent age in history. Imagine what might be accomplished if people everywhere actually relinquished the mimetic violence that Jesus spoke against? If all people loved and sincerely prayed for their enemies, there would be no more enemies. Christ evidently foresaw a 'beautiful potential ... to be realized' too. If he spoke the truth, then his teaching is no less beneficial than conscientious humanitarianism.
No doubt some 'mysticism' has hindered progress, depending on what you mean by 'mysticism.' All forms of ignorance--whether cynicism, bigotry, hatred, pride, fear, selfishness, and innumerable other traits of humanity--have hindered progress. Scapegoating religion, however, simply provides a whipping boy for insecure people while hiding the real underlying problems of ignorance just mentioned. Religion doesn't insure against ignorance, it merely offers people a philosophy to explore; they can bring along all their baggage with them, if they choose to do so. Ridiculing religion does nothing to solve the problems of ignorance, hatred, bad motive, etc. In fact, it perpetuates and reinforces them in the same way that fundamentalist religion does--by claiming 'We are better than you because we have a certainty that you do not'.
The question still is, if even a small amount of the scriptural teaching about Christ is disavowed by a Christian what becomes the anchor for faith?
Again, you would have to ask those about whom you are speaking. I do not know how they rationalize their beliefs. Traditional Christianity insists that the "anchor" for faith is the personal relationship the Christian has with Christ, not some doctrinal authority. Now if the individual claims Jesus never existed, or that he was not resurrected (i.e., not alive today), then I do not imagine that individual can have much of a personal relationship with Christ, and he would have to explain his rationale for claiming to be a Christian.
Men like Brown and Spong both being Catholic clergy puzzel me, yet I am indebted to them.
Spong is Episcopalian, not Catholic, btw. If by 'being indebted to them,' you mean they opened your eyes to alternative ways of looking at the Bible and Christianity, I applaud that. Expunging the fundamentalist cataracts from my eyes has brought me immense pleasure and satisfaction as it has opened avenues of exploration into theology, science and philosophy that were previously closed.
Cheers,
Rational
peacefulpete

RW
You got me again,Spong is Episcopalian not Catholic, accuracy of statement is important.
As to applying terms like "relativism and Metaphysical naturalism" to modern science or humanism,I have just had this discussion with RWC in the Questions for Atheists and Atheist Myths threads, please read them in their entirety.
I tried in vain to find the quotation you said was from Bertrand Russell's "Why I am Not a Chritian" to put it in context for you.I believe it is possible that such a phrase could have been lifted from one of his works but certainly not carrying the meaning you have attributed to it ,as citing an inescapeable despair resulting from atheism.To quote him from this very book:"I am told that that sort of view is depressing,and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that they would not be able to go on living.Do not believe it it is all nonsense......Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out-at least I suppose we may say so,although sometimes when I contemplate the things people do with there lives I think it is almost a consolation-it is not such as to render life miserable.It merely makes you turn your attention to other things. We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world-it's good facts, it's bad facts,it's beauties,it' ugliness;see the world as it is,and not be afraid of it....We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish,after all it will still be better than what these others(religionists)have made of it in all these ages.A good world needs knowledge, kindlness and courage,It does not need a regretful hankering after the past,or a fettering of the free intelligence by words uttered long ago by ignorant men.It needs a fearless outlook and free intelligence.It needs hope for the future,not looking back all the time tward a past that is dead,which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create."

I will not accuse you of quoting creationist literature rather than having read his comments in context.But the thought occurs to me.Any isolated quotes might reflect the author's feelings or may be stating the simple fact that to many theists the position of atheism seems to them to be depressing. As I said earlier despair results from a sense of powerlessness.Every person experiences the emotion at times of diappointment.To charactorize an entire socio/scientific movement as despairing is simply an apeal to emotional consequence.ie:If you don't have God you will be depressed and without hope,so you have to believe in God.
What I have read from Russell and Darwin and others who once held to christian theology before doing the research and reflection that changed their lives,leads me to conclude that the initial feelings of loss resulted from their indoctrination that there must be some "ultimate meaning"for life to be enjoyable. To illustrate if I tell my friend in Guyana that she is a lost princess and that the royal family wants to bring to England and shower her with gifts in the near future, she will no doubt rejoice,but when I tell her 2 yrs later I was lying, her emotional state will be far more gloomy than had I not lied and given her false hope.
So in this case despair comes, if it comes,from disillusionment not reality.This emphasises the need to be supportive if engaged in these debates,recognize the emotional consequences to the person whom I may convince.And try to steer them tward positive and meaningful activity.It also emphasizes the need to teach young people critical thinking skills so they will be spared this turmoil in later life.It is a large step to make this reinventing oneself based upon entirely new realities.But it can be done with help from others who have done it.And lifes "beauties,and good facts"can provide a quality life now and hope for a better tomorrow.
I stand by my statement that Christianity fosters a defeatist personality.Not only am I called a "Good for nothing slave"after working dillegently,but I'm told that human efforts to improve the world are futile and unwittingly Satanic.I noticed that when ever scripture describes God's love for us it is to emphasize His great mercy and our undeservedness of it.Not to elevate our self worth.No doubt you interpret the scriptures differently.
"The only good is happiness and the only way to be happy is to make others so."To paraphrase Robert Ingersoll
It has been fun discussing these things over the past weeks and I would like to thank everyone for commenting in response to my ramblings.I'm back to work Mon and have to say Good-bye.
RationalWitness

Peaceful,

You said:
As to applying terms like "relativism and Metaphysical naturalism" to modern science or humanism,I have just had this discussion with RWC in the Questions for Atheists and Atheist Myths threads, please read them in their entirety.
Per your request, I have read the two threads you mention. In my opinion, the "Atheist Myths" thread was a waste of everyone's time and has no relevance at all to this thread. The "Questions for Atheists" thread had some relevance here, though minor. There was some good discussion between you and Perry amidst what was otherwise just the 'noise' that typically characterizes xjw atheist/theist debates.

As for the connection between modern science and moral relativism, I made that connection because Dr. Rue did, and I have to agree with Dr. Rue that without God, there is an inevitability of moral relativism. What other absolute exists? Certainly not cultural or social ethics, which are obviously impermanent and constantly in flux. But that discussion is really a separate one from this one. As for metaphysical naturalism, there is a small connection between the "Questions for Atheists" thread and this one, and I will address that toward the end of this response.

Next, you said:
I tried in vain to find the quotation you said was from Bertrand Russell's "Why I am Not a Chritian" to put it in context for you.I believe it is possible that such a phrase could have been lifted from one of his works but certainly not carrying the meaning you have attributed to it ,as citing an inescapeable despair resulting from atheism.
It is in the chapter titled "A Free Man's Worship" on page 104. Except for the initial quote from Faust, here is the essay in its entirety. (I have highlighted his comment regarding despair, along with some--though not all--others which I think are salient.):
To Dr. Faustus in his study Mephistopheles told the history of the Creation, saying: [quote omitted for brevity]

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

How, in such an alien and inhuman world, can so powerless a creature as Man preserve his aspirations untarnished? A strange mystery it is that Nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular hurryings through the abysses of space, has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power, but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking Mother. In spite of Death, the mark and seal of the parental control, Man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine, to criticise, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs; and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his outward life.

The savage, like ourselves, feels the oppression of his impotence before the powers of Nature; but having in himself nothing that he respects more than Power, he is willing to prostrate himself before his gods, without inquiring whether they are worthy of his worship. Pathetic and very terrible is the long history of cruelty and torture, of degradation and human sacrifice, endured in the hope of placating the jealous gods: surely, the trembling believer thinks, when what is most precious has been freely given, their lust for blood must be appeased, and more will not be required. The religion of Moloch--as such creeds may be generically called--is in essence the cringing submission of the slave, who dare not, even in his heart, allow the thought that his master deserves no adulation. Since the independence of ideals is not yet acknowledged, Power may be freely worshipped, and receive an unlimited respect, despite its wanton infliction of pain.

But gradually, as morality grows bolder, the claim of the ideal world begins to be felt; and worship, if it is not to cease, must be given to gods of another kind than those created by the savage. Some, though they feel the demands of the ideal, will still consciously reject them, still urging that naked Power is worthy of worship. Such is the attitude inculcated in God's answer to Job out of the whirlwind: the divine power and knowledge are paraded, but of the divine goodness there is no hint. Such also is the attitude of those who, in our own day, base their morality upon the struggle for survival, maintaining that the survivors are necessarily the fittest. But others, not content with an answer so repugnant to the moral sense, will adopt the position which we have become accustomed to regard as specially religious, maintaining that, in some hidden manner, the world of fact is really harmonious with the world of ideals. Thus Man creates God, all-powerful and all-good, the mystic unity of what is and what should be.

But the world of fact, after all, is not good; and, in submitting our judgment to it, there is an element of slavishness from which our thoughts must be purged. For in all things it is well to exalt the dignity of Man, by freeing him as far as possible from the tyranny of non-human Power. When we have realised that Power is largely bad, that man, with his knowledge of good and evil, is but a helpless atom in a world which has no such knowledge, the choice is again presented to us: Shall we worship Force, or shall we worship Goodness? Shall our God exist and be evil, or shall he be recognised as the creation of our own conscience?

The answer to this question is very momentous, and affects profoundly our whole morality. The worship of Force, to which Carlyle and Nietzsche and the creed of Militarism have accustomed us, is the result of failure to maintain our own ideals against a hostile universe: it is itself a prostrate submission to evil, a sacrifice of our best to Moloch. If strength indeed is to be respected, let us respect rather the strength of those who refuse that false "recognition of facts" which fails to recognise that facts are often bad. Let us admit that, in the world we know, there are many things that would be better otherwise, and that the ideals to which we do and must adhere are not realised in the realm of matter. Let us preserve our respect for truth, for beauty, for the ideal of perfection which life does not permit us to attain, though none of these things meet with the approval of the unconscious universe. If Power is bad, as it seems to be, let us reject it from our hearts. In this lies Man's true freedom: in determination to worship only the God created by our own love of the good, to respect only the heaven which inspires the insight of our best moments. In action, in desire, we must submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces; but in thought, in aspiration, we are free, free from our fellow-men, free from the petty planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even, while we live, from the tyranny of death. Let us learn, then, that energy of faith which enables us to live constantly in the vision of the good; and let us descend, in action, into the world of fact, with that vision always before us.

When first the opposition of fact and ideal grows fully visible, a spirit of fiery revolt, of fierce hatred of the gods, seems necessary to the assertion of freedom. To defy with Promethean constancy a hostile universe, to keep its evil always in view, always actively hated, to refuse no pain that the malice of Power can invent, appears to be the duty of all who will not bow before the inevitable. But indignation is still a bondage, for it compels our thoughts to be occupied with an evil world; and in the fierceness of desire from which rebellion springs there is a kind of self-assertion which it is necessary for the wise to overcome. Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires; the Stoic freedom in which wisdom consists is found in the submission of our desires, but not of our thoughts. From the submission of our desires springs the virtue of resignation; from the freedom of our thoughts springs the whole world of art and philosophy, and the vision of beauty by which, at last, we half reconquer the reluctant world. But the vision of beauty is possible only to unfettered contemplation, to thoughts not weighted by the load of eager wishes; and thus Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of Time.

Although the necessity of renunciation is evidence of the existence of evil, yet Christianity, in preaching it, has shown a wisdom exceeding that of the Promethean philosophy of rebellion. It must be admitted that, of the things we desire, some, though they prove impossible, are yet real goods; others, however, as ardently longed for, do not form part of a fully purified ideal. The belief that what must be renounced is bad, though sometimes false, is far less often false than untamed passion supposes; and the creed of religion, by providing a reason for proving that it is never false, has been the means of purifying our hopes by the discovery of many austere truths.

But there is in resignation a further good element: even real goods, when they are unattainable, ought not to be fretfully desired. To every man comes, sooner or later, the great renunciation. For the young, there is nothing unattainable; a good thing desired with the whole force of a passionate will, and yet impossible, is to them not credible. Yet, by death, by illness, by poverty, or by the voice of duty, we must learn, each one of us, that the world was not made for us, and that, however beautiful may be the things we crave, Fate may nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage, when misfortune comes, to bear without repining the ruin of our hopes, to turn away our thoughts from vain regrets. This degree of submission to Power is not only just and right: it is the very gate of wisdom.

But passive renunciation is not the whole of wisdom; for not by renunciation alone can we build a temple for the worship of our own ideals. Haunting foreshadowings of the temple appear in the realm of imagination, in music, in architecture, in the untroubled kingdom of reason, and in the golden sunset magic of lyrics, where beauty shines and glows, remote from the touch of sorrow, remote from the fear of change, remote from the failures and disenchantments of the world of fact. In the contemplation of these things the vision of heaven will shape itself in our hearts, giving at once a touchstone to judge the world about us, and an inspiration by which to fashion to our needs whatever is not incapable of serving as a stone in the sacred temple.

Except for those rare spirits that are born without sin, there is a cavern of darkness to be traversed before that temple can be entered. The gate of the cavern is despair, and its floor is paved with the gravestones of abandoned hopes. There Self must die; there the eagerness, the greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can the soul be freed from the empire of Fate. But out of the cavern the Gate of Renunciation leads again to the daylight of wisdom, by whose radiance a new insight, a new joy, a new tenderness, shine forth to gladden the pilgrim's heart.

]When, without the bitterness of impotent rebellion, we have learnt both to resign ourselves to the outward rules of Fate and to recognise that the non-human world is unworthy of our worship, it becomes possible at last so to transform and refashion the unconscious universe, so to transmute it in the crucible of imagination, that a new image of shining gold replaces the old idol of clay. In all the multiform facts of the world--in the visual shapes of trees and mountains and clouds, in the events of the life of man, even in the very omnipotence of Death--the insight of creative idealism can find the reflection of a beauty which its own thoughts first made. In this way mind asserts its subtle mastery over the thoughtless forces of Nature. The more evil the material with which it deals, the more thwarting to untrained desire, the greater is its achievement in inducing the reluctant rock to yield up its hidden treasures, the prouder its victory in compelling the opposing forces to swell the pageant of its triumph. Of all the arts, Tragedy is the proudest, the most triumphant; for it builds its shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; from its impregnable watchtowers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts, are all revealed; within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacles of beauty. Happy those sacred ramparts, thrice happy the dwellers on that all-seeing eminence. Honour to those brave warriors who, through countless ages of warfare, have preserved for us the priceless heritage of liberty, and have kept undefiled by sacrilegious invaders the home of the unsubdued.

But the beauty of Tragedy does but make visible a quality which, in more or less obvious shapes, is present always and everywhere in life. In the spectacle of Death, in the endurance of intolerable pain, and in the irrevocableness of a vanished past, there is a sacredness, an overpowering awe, a feeling of the vastness, the depth, the inexhaustible mystery of existence, in which, as by some strange marriage of pain, the sufferer is bound to the world by bonds of sorrow. In these moments of insight, we lose all eagerness of temporary desire, all struggling and striving for petty ends, all care for the little trivial things that, to a superficial view, make up the common life of day by day; we see, surrounding the narrow raft illumined by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; from the great night without, a chill blast breaks in upon our refuge; all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul, which must struggle alone, with what of courage it can command, against the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears. Victory, in this struggle with the powers of darkness, is the true baptism into the glorious company of heroes, the true initiation into the overmastering beauty of human existence. From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. [Nota bene: if you believe what Russell is here saying, then the existence of evil must not be any barrier to your belief in God, since as Russell states all the evil of the world provides the means to make us heroes amidst "the true overmastering beauty of human existence"!] To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be--Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity--to feel these things and know them is to conquer them.

This is the reason why the Past has such magical power. The beauty of its motionless and silent pictures is like the enchanted purity of late autumn, when the leaves, though one breath would make them fall, still glow against the sky in golden glory. The Past does not change or strive; like Duncan, after life's fitful fever it sleeps well; what was eager and grasping, what was petty and transitory, has faded away, the things that were beautiful and eternal shine out of it like stars in the night. Its beauty, to a soul not worthy of it, is unendurable; but to a soul which has conquered Fate it is the key of religion.

The life of Man, viewed outwardly, is but a small thing in comparison with the forces of Nature. The slave is doomed to worship Time and Fate and Death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour. But, great as they are, to think of them greatly, to feel their passionless splendour, is greater still. And such thought makes us free men; we no longer bow before the inevitable in Oriental subjection, but we absorb it, and make it a part of ourselves. To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things--this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship. And this liberation is effected by a contemplation of Fate; for Fate itself is subdued by the mind which leaves nothing to be purged by the purifying fire of Time.

United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves. And so, when their day is over, when their good and their evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past, be it ours to feel that, where they suffered, where they failed, no deed of ours was the cause; but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts, we were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, with brave words in which high courage glowed.

Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.
Now, I have read and re-read this, and all I can come away with is a sense of despair not unlike that experienced by prisoners of Nazi concentration camps who comforted themselves with the rationalization "Die Gedanken sind frei" (loosely, "my thoughts are free"). By the 1920's Russell had redefined his philosophy to a less "platonic" one, which is reflected in the quotes you reference. But that just looks to me like Russell anticipating "the noble lie" a few decades ahead of Dr. Rue. Of course, it is obvious that atheists do not in fact live lives of utter despair. Like Russell, they replace ultimate meaning with relative meaning to fill the vacuum: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

Certainly, you can say that some lives have meaning and value by virtue of contributing to the well-being of society in general or the benefit of other human lives. But this is clearly relative. Some great scientists or politicians or artists may contribute something universal or lasting to mankind, but for the majority of us, no such prospect exists. Do common people, then, have less meaning and value in their lives than the former ones? Ethically, I can see this being a slippery slope. You did not address my comments regarding Mengele and his subjects, many of whom were babies and children. Did their lives have meaning or purpose? If no, is that not a cause for despair to atheists? If yes, then on what basis? Can an atheist (non-deist, if you prefer) believe that the life of every single human has meaning and value ... without smuggling in a theistic perspective? Help me to understand this.

You said:
To charactorize an entire socio/scientific movement as despairing is simply an apeal to emotional consequence.ie:If you don't have God you will be depressed and without hope,so you have to believe in God.
LOL. So, what are you saying? That atheists do have a hope? What hope, exactly, is that? I am not saying that atheists cannot avoid being depressed--I'm agreeing with Russell and others that they can fill their lives with diversions or activities that will satisfy their emotional needs, but if there is no God, then those diversions and activities are ultimately meaningless.
So in this case despair comes, if it comes,from disillusionment not reality.
Yes ... in that case. But you are assuming that there is no ultimate meaning, purpose or value to life, and a priori on that basis, people should not believe otherwise, else they will be disappointed. That is the whole point, isn't it? Theists hold that there is ultimate meaning, atheists that there is not. If theists are correct, then it would be a terrible thing to mislead people about the possibility of ultimate meaning in their life, would it not? Which would be worse--to mislead people by telling them there is ultimate meaning in their life, when there is not ... or telling them there is not ultimate meaning in their life, when there is? I would rather be guilty of the former than the latter.
I stand by my statement that Christianity fosters a defeatist personality.Not only am I called a "Good for nothing slave"after working dillegently,but I'm told that human efforts to improve the world are futile and unwittingly Satanic.I noticed that when ever scripture describes God's love for us it is to emphasize His great mercy and our undeservedness of it.Not to elevate our self worth.No doubt you interpret the scriptures differently.
Well, then I need say very little, since you have said it for me: I interpret the Scriptures differently. Where you hold to medieval doctrinal interpretations that devalue humans, I favor enlightened ones that paint a different picture of God and Christ (like the views of Rene Girard, which prompted my entry into this thread, and about which you asked me).

With regard to your concern about my use of the term "metaphysical naturalism," I noted your comments to Perry about the subject in the "Questions" thread:
More importantly,your thoughts mirror those of Philip E. Johnson,a prominant creationist writer.He too accused today's scientists of metaphysical naturalism.He either intentionally or ignorantly interchanges the Ontological naturalism of Sinoza with the Methodological naturalism of modern science.I feel that you must yourself read a new book to see the distinction:"Tower of Babel"by Robert Pennock.
I have never heard of Philip E. Johnson (I am not, btw, a "creationist"), and I will look into Tower of Babel--it sounds interesting. Many scientists, including many (maybe most) scientists who are Christians, maintain that the scientific process assumes a methodological commitment to naturalism. And some insist that this is distinct from metaphysical naturalism, or a commitment to naturalism as an overall metaphysical outlook. Methodological naturalism stipulates that scientific accounts must refer to wholly natural phenomena without reference to immediate or direct contributions by nonnatural or supernatural forces or agents. Calling it methodological naturalism serves to highlight the fact that it is a way of characterizing a particular methodology, nothing more. It does not suggest (or is at least not normally intended to suggest) a larger metaphysical or ontological claim about what sort of activity is or is not possible in the real world. This, I assume, is what you are saying by your mention of Spinoza's ontological naturalism, but I have not read Spinoza, and can't really comment on that. But I am not talking about methodology or semantics ... I am talking about a basis for answering the metaphysical question "Why is there anything at all?" Whether we say there is a reason for the cosmos (God) or there is not a reason ('The cosmos is all that is, that ever was and ever will be,' in the immortal words of Carl Sagan), there is no way to avoid the fact that this is ultimately a metaphysical question which has either a supernaturalist answer or a naturalist one. I would recommend you read philosopher Roy Clouser's remarkable book The Myth of Religious Certainty.
It has been fun discussing these things over the past weeks and I would like to thank everyone for commenting in response to my ramblings.I'm back to work Mon and have to say Good-bye.
If you don't get to reply to this, I hope you will at least get to read it. Stay happy!

Rational
edited to correct "members" to "prisoners"
gravedancer
peacefulpete

RW
I'm sure everyone who contributed to those threads appreciates your insulting estimate of their comments.
The point is this I am real and I'm informing you of how I and others feel and you are telling me I am mistaken.What arrogance,that when face to face with living proof that you have drawn an incorrect conclusion,rant about how smart you are and how worthless the opinions and comments of others are! You have an incomplete understanding,I have an incomplete understanding.Too bad we won't learn anything from each other.
RationalWitness

Peaceful,
I have reread my post, and I apologize sincerely for the impression it left. What I said about the "Atheist Myths" thread being a waste of time was inappropriate, and reflected my belief that the thread was started simply to bait theists. (The originator's own comments therein led me to that conclusion.) That comment was not intended to be insulting toward you or any other sincerely motivated poster who engaged in it. Again, I apologize.
My comments regarding the "Questions from Atheists" thread were simply an honest assessment, including that it had no real connection to this one except for the observations about metaphysical naturalism--which I addressed. My comments meant no disrespect to honest and courteous disagreement and exchange of views, nor to demean anyone's intelligence or understanding. The "noise" I spoke of was, in fact, that kind of pointless and useless rangling. I hope you will believe me that I really had no intent to be dismissive.
In response to your statement that 'I am telling you you are mistaken,' I was answering the questions you raised to me. As for your having a complete understanding and my having an incomplete one, that is far from proven and people can draw their own conclusions about the matter.
Please be assured that my wish for your continued happiness was and is sincere.
Respectfully,
Rational
jst2laws

RationalWitness and PeacefulPete,
I just discovered this discussion after looking for it for hours (on a tip)
You are both into technical issues and quotes of authorities of which I have little if any knowledge. I hope this dialogue will continue.
As JT would say; Deeeeeeeeepppp!
Peaceful,
Please do not misunderstand RW. You can tell from his last post he is not being condescending.
You said:
You have an incomplete understanding, I have an incomplete understanding. Too bad we won't learn anything from each other.
Please do not leap to judgment. Continue the discussion. This is one of the most stimulating intellectual discussions here in weeks.
Jst2laws
Please do not misunderstand RW. You can tell from his last post he is not being condecending. You said:
You have an incomplete understanding,I have an incomplete understanding. Too bad we won't learn anything from each other.
Please do not leap to judgement. Continue the discussion. This is one of the most stimulating intellectual discussions here in weeks.
Jst2laws

Human Sacrifice

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